Harry Potter and The Rise Of A Champion
by grand griffon
Summary: Sequel to Rising War. A fallen hero will rise, failing hope will be restored, the battle will continue untill the champion stands tall.
1. My Immortal

Harry Potter and The Rise Of A Champion

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Chapter One: My Immortal

"Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust" said a clear voice which was met with silence. That was all there was now; silence. No one dared to say anything, hoping that their hero, friend and brother would come back, but in their hearts they all knew that he was gone forever. Harry James Gryffindor Dumbledore Black Potter was dead. Killed by six killing curses shot from six aurors, directed by one man; the minister of magic, Cornelius Fudge.

Ginny still couldn't believe it was done. Some time during the battle fudge had awoken from his coma due to the headmastership being relieved from him and McGonagall taking over. He had saw fit to stop Harry before he got ahead and gathered his army and took the dark lords place. 'It was for the good of the people' he had said at a conference. 'He was using dark arts, he was unstable and had plenty of motive to turn to the dark' he had said at the hearing. 'He was a hero' was forever signified on his grave. The ministry had sent his body back Straight away after the Wizengamot had declared that he be left in piece and the arrangements were made for Harry to be buried next to his parents, the parents he had not remembered in life, the parents he would be meeting in his death. The turn out for the funeral was not what should have been for a fallen hero, instead it was what should have been for a tarnished hero, but Harry was no tarnished hero.

"Thank you all for coming, for honouring the hero, friend and family member that was Harry Potter" Dumbledore said from the stage, breaking Ginny from her thoughts. It was all done now. Harry was buried and that was that. As the crowd dissipated Ginny walked over to the grave and kneeled before it, reading it for what felt like the hundredth time.

'Harry James Gryffindor Dumbledore Black Potter'

'July 1980 – May 1997'

'Rest Well My Immortal' 

Carved around the edge of the grave were Lilies and in the bottom left corner was a big shaggy dog, beside Harry's full title (Dumbledore had insisted on it, and Ron insisted on the Dumbledore part) was a stag standing proudly for his son and on the right side of the inscription 'Rest Well My Immortal' (They had all agreed it appropriate as it was one of Harry's favourite songs) was a werewolf.  Underneath it all in the centre was Harry's crest, his insignia of everything he believed in and hoped for. The lion Courage, the Phoenix loyalty, the Grim Destiny, the stars and moon tranquillity and the lilies Love. That one crest described Harry far better than any words could. With a heavy sigh Ginny Weasley rose to her feet and whispered to the wind "Goodbye my Love" realising too late what she had felt all along.

******************4 years later******************

"We are going to have to increase the guards at the gates, I have received intelligence that he is to increase his attacks, I don't think we will be able to hold out any more." Dumbledore said to his most trusted friend, Remus Lupin. After the death of his godson Lupin was in a terrible state, he wouldn't eat, sleep or talk. Indeed Harry's friends were in much the same state but once the funeral was out of the way they slowly made their way back to reality, but Remus would not, could not accept that Harry was no longer among the living. It took months of him researching all he could about raising the dead before he gave up, realising there was no way to do it and he finally cracked. He spent a great deal of time mourning but that had been cut short by the incident.

After the final battle the ministry had taken away the metal encased Voldemort for 'Safe keeping' but they soon found that safe was used loosely. Voldemort escaped, presumably with the help of the dark arts and some loyal followers that were still working within the ministry. It had taken a lot of power for Voldemort to break out and so he spent a great deal of his first year recovering, but after that things went sour. Without Harry there was only Dumbledore to stand in his way, but age, as it so often does, caught Dumbledore unawares, he was finally beginning to feel his many years and the threat of Voldemort weigh on his shoulders, and it was a weight that only got heavier as time went on.

The ministry had crumbled from within during the second year of the third war, leaving Hogwarts the only remaining institute of hope for the British Isles, the foreign ministries leaving the British alone so as not to draw attention to themselves and evoke Voldemort's wrath on their people.

"I'll get right to it. How is Hermione doing with the generator thingy?" Remus asked.

"She thinks it will be done within the week, and I hope her estimation is correct. Things look bad." Dumbledore replied.

"I don't understand how Harry was able to do that sort of thing so easily?" Remus said with a wistful look in his eyes, one he always got when Harry was mentioned.

"He truly was a remarkable man. I had no idea he was creating plans to incorporate muggle generators and magic together for defense. I wish he were here" Dumbledore said with a sad look on his face and in his normally twinkling eyes.

"We all do, Albus, We all do" Remus said before getting to his feet and leaving the headmaster to his thoughts.

*******************************************

"Minister, his magic is doing something very strange, it seems to be increasing exponentially, I fear it will become hazardous to be too close soon." The researcher said to the very safe, very alive minister of magic.

After the rule for Harry's body to be returned to his friends Fudge had had an exact replica created and instead sent that while he and a group of researchers took Harry's body to his private offices in London. When he got there however he was unprepared for what happened next, after the body had been laid down on the table that was set aside for the research there was a surge of magic that came from the body, the wind picked up and outside the sky darkened, lightning flashed and thunder roared. When fudge looked back to the boy, he was no longer lying on the table, but floating above it. Within seconds of him noticing this a sound reached his ears, it was a most harmonious sound. At first the group of ministry officials thought it was phoenix song, but after a few moments they realised there was a different feel to this song, a different sound.

"What's going on?" The minister had asked but before any one could reply they all heard a voice, soft, delicate and full of emotion.

"Goodbye, my love" 

And then the body of Harry Potter was hit by lightning, from where no one could say and reduced to nothing more than a pile of ash. Well that's what they thought at first but after a few moments of silence a clear sound rang out from the pile of ashes. It was the sound of a baby crying.

"No, it cant be, this is impossible. He was hit by 6 curses." Fudge exclaimed.

"Look, he has the scar and everything!" One of the officials said.

"What shall we do?" Another asked.

"We will raise the boy here, tech him to be loyal to the ministry, and then we will have our own defense should another problem arise." Fudge said excitedly, but as the words left his mouth the baby stopped crying and look at fudge, and then to everyone's amazement narrowed its eyes and blew a raspberry at him.

"Minister do you think he still has his own mind?" Asked another official.

"I am not the researcher here, why don't you find out!" fudge shouted at him. It took a few days of tests but once the results were in it was clear that the baby was still Harry James Gryffindor Dumbledore Black Potter. It took fudge many hours of thinking to decide what he was going to do until he came up with an ingenious idea. He went back to the ministry and ordered some dementors under the pretences that they were to guard you-know-who and took one with him back to his Private offices where he had the dementors administer the 'kiss' on Potter, all the while thinking of him as the evil dark lord Potter and the helpless baby that was in front of him now.

When the ministry fell and Voldemort came back Fudge had remained in his offices, using the Fedelius charm to hide until his researchers were able to give him the ability to either take Potter's magic or posses his body and thus save the wizarding world and be remembered as the greatest minister ever.

**********************************************

Cold. That's all there was in this place, if it could even be called a place. Coldness. All though to be fair there were the occasional screams of anguish filled horror from one of the older souls that had been trapped in the dementor.

Harry Potter had been aware of himself for four years now. He remembered the curses being fired at him, but not having enough energy to do any thing, but after that nothing until the feeling. It was the feeling that brought about his consciousness to the world, the will to stay on the earth, to protect that feeling. Had he been any one different he would have manifested himself as a ghost but as it was he was different and for once in his life? No existence he was grateful for the difference. He could still sense his magic and so he sought out his core and found the part he was looking for, his animagus forms, more precisely the second, Quezacotl. It was a long shot on Harry's part because he didn't know if he would have any of the magical abilities the actual animal had but it was worth a try and so he activated it with great effort (He was still only a spirit with very little influence over any energy) and at once felt as if he had activated a portkey as he was tugged forceful into his body and reborn, only to be tortured for eternity days later.

When he first arrived in his new 'home' he felt the full effects of a dementor, the coldness, darkness and the feeling of never ever feeling happiness again, but the effects of the dementor didn't last because eventually Harry was able to guard his mind with a feeling, the feeling that drew him back to the living in the first place. The feeling of love, the power the dark lord knows not. So for the last four years Harry had been absorbing the natural magic the dementor gave off and was storing it within his empty core until he had enough to break free, which he was sure he could do after having a look around. The inside of the dementor was very much like what one would imagine hell would be, minus all of the flames and fire. It was angular, dark, and dreary and stank! During his walkabouts Harry had noticed a small portal above him which had a thin thread of magic that stretched down towards him but disappeared before it touched him, which he assumed to be the mouth and the link he had to his body from the wandless magic channel he created to his brain and arms, but it was always closed so he had to find a way to open it. After much though Harry decided he would cast a Patronus and see if it made the dementor feel sick, once that was done he would follow his thread out of the dementor and hopefully back to his body. Now four years later (Though Harry did not know how long he had been there) he had absorbed enough to cast only one, now after this long wait he would be free to find the love that kept him alive. It was time to Return.

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A/N: Well here I am, again. I didn't intend to get this out right away but I thought I would so as not to keep you loyal fans thinking I would really kill Harry off for good! Updates will not be regular for this fic because I want to get ahead in this and the three others I will be starting soon, as well as a website hopefully. Hope y'all enjoyed.

Until Next time 

                        GG


	2. Rise of a Champion

**Harry Potter and The Rise Of A Champion**

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**Chapter Two: Rise of a Champion**

"Hey 'Mione" Ron greeted his girlfriend.

"How was class?" Hermione asked as she settled herself next to her love.

"Same as usual, they all want to help with the war, but the way things are going it looks like it will be over before they reach a level where they'll be able to defend themselves." Ron replied wearily. Ever since Harry had been killed Ron had thrown himself into his studies to keep his mind away from reality, which worked for a time, but when he was confronted by Hermione who had grown worried for her boyfriend he was forced to 'come back' as Hermione had said. Even after Ron began to come back to his senses he still continued with his rigorous study programme so he was prepared for when Riddle (They all took to calling him this now in honour of Harry) struck. After graduating Ron had immediately applied for the defense against the dark arts position so he could teach the students how to hold their own when the time comes. Hermione went through a similar experience as Ron except she was able to help herself out of it, she had been barely responsive in the months after the battle, and only the news of Voldemort's escape and the closure of Harry being buried brought here back to her senses, Ginny however was totally different, she showed no outward signs of the lose except for the initial shock that had overcome them all on the day, and weeks that followed. When asked about why she didn't seem to be bothered by the loss she would always reply that Harry was always with her, and so she was left to her own devices in the castle, helping when it was needed to defend or heal. In the years after the slaughter of Harry and Voldemort's third return many of the witches and wizards on the 'light' side had returned to the castle to help defend it and also keep safe, as a result many new building were added and the wards extended around Hogsmeade so all of the new comers had somewhere to live. Hogwarts now looked more like a small kingdom, with it's mighty walls surrounding a small town.

"Dumbledore thinks that the walls and wards wont hold out much longer." Hermione said

"How far are you with the generator?" Ron  questioned

"About another week, I should think. Its hard to get the magic right and to make it run smoothly with the muggle machinery." Hermione explained.

"Well if any one can do it, it's you." Ron said with a reassuring smile to his girlfriend. "Now I'm hungry, what's for dinner" Ron said with a cheeky smile.

"Oh Ron, you and your food, will you never change?" Hermione said with fake exasperation.

"Not on your life" was his reply.

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"Expecto Patronum" Bellowed a powerful voice from somewhere within the murky, cold, desolate depths of the dementors hell. The power commanded by the voice was manifested into the brightest light many of the tortured souls had seen in years, and the warmth that accompanied it was enough to permit some of the closer souls a brief moment of clarity, of sanity and of hope, but like most good things it must come to an end, and the end to this was a most spectacular one indeed. A silver stag manifested itself from the hand of the Harry as he screamed the charm with all the power he could muster.

"Prongs, you made it" Harry panted but prongs did not stay close enough for long enough to here its master talk to it, for it had a massive job to do. Straight away it bounded into the mess that is the inside of a dementor and began causing mayhem to it. Harry could feel after only a few moments the dementor begin to retch, or at least something akin to retch and as soon as the portal opened Harry seized his chance and with the last of his magic and with the aid of the thread that still connected him to his body via his magic core he was away and free.

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"Sir, we have a problem" said a very nervous ministry official, all though he supposed he couldn't really be called that any more, the minister was far past the point of where sanity and insanity meet in the wrong direction, he had suspected that since the hearing the minister had had to attend due to his order to kill Potter,  he had been ordered to give in his notice within a period of 30 days by the members of the Wizengamot, especially Dumbledore, but fudge retreated with Potters body taking with him some of the more curious members of the ministry to work on Potter. When the ministry fell they were all assumed to be casualties of the war and no one bothered to look for them, which had suited the minister just fine.

"Well spit it out then, what's wrong with the body this time?" Fudge asked in a short tone.

"It's not the body this time, it's one of the guards, a dementor, it looks as if it's sick sir." He explained.

"Sick? Sick? Dementors don't get sick, where is it?" fudge exclaimed.

"Right this way sir" The official said as he led the minister from his office to where the dementors were guarding over the shell that once was Harry Potter.

"As you can see sir it…" the official began but was cut of as the dementor screamed and unearthly, awful scream that struck fear into the hearts of anyone within a mile radius, even if they didn't hear anything.

"aarrgghh! Shut that god-awful thing up now!" Fudge bellowed over the noise. The dementors racket had made all who heard it fall to their knees in pain and fear, some of the less cowardly were shaking on the floor, having what fudge assumed to be a breakdown. As suddenly as the dementor screamed it stopped and there was silence, as though there was nothing breaking the fragile quietness of the night.

"Thank god" Fudge exclaimed as he got to his feet, but when he looked to the dementor which was now unconscious on the floor his jaw nearly hit the ground, standing before him, in spirit form was none other than Harry Potter. Before he had a chance to do anything however the wind once again picked up, as it had done four years ago and the spirit of Potter looked to be dragged from its standing position wit such force that his feet were lifted into the air level with where his head had been, and then a split second later the spirit was sucked into the body. Potter must have still felt like he was being dragged because the body sprang from the table it had been lying on with great force, but before it could hit anything it was halted in mid air. Again, as had happened four years previous, the variation of phoenix song was heard accompanied by the mini lightning storm, but this time something else happened, in a flash of emerald green Harry's aura was pushed forth and the lightning began striking it, but instead of just being absorbed it remained on the surface, occasionally coming a few centimetres from it, but otherwise it seemed to be just 'swimming' about on it. During the whole thing Potter's face had scrunched up in pain and he was screaming.

"What is this?" Fudge asked as he and the other remaining officials looked on with fear.

"It l.. looks li… like the Tran… transformation for a sorc…sorcerer" one of them stuttered out.

"How is this possible?" Fudge asked, dreading the answer.

"It looks like the tr… transformation was n... n… n… not possible without a soul, and now it has it back…well" The official trailed off.

"We have to stop him then, he's mad, he'll kill us all!" Fudge exclaimed but before he had a chance to even lift his wand, Harry's aura expanded, swallowing the last of his loyal workers, the electricity burning their internal organs while the magic scorching their skin until their was nothing but blood stained bone left, Fudge had barely managed to escape the aura but not the lightning that teased at the surface. As if sensing the closeness of Fudge the lightning jumped off the aura in an arc and connected with Fudge, pumping him with thousands of vaults of electricity, while the impact threw him back towards his office, however he was not in front of the door, or even the wall when he was thrown, but a window, and so he crashed through half way, the impact of the reinforced glass stopping him but not altogether holding out. As he lay there, still twitching a burning, slowly dieing from the impact of the lightning and cooking of his internal organs, the upper half of the glass that he had not hit and that had managed to stay in place finally came loose, and like a guillotine, granted a very jagged one, it sliced through his body, separating his belly and downwards from the rest of his body, killing him.

During the whole fiasco with the ministry personal Harry had been undergoing his transformation from puny, underfed, malnourished and weak little boy, to the physical perfection that he had once been. The small part of his mind that was not affected by the pain was amazed that not only had he started out as a baby again, but it had only taken four years to reach maturity again. 'I wonder if this means that I will always come back looking like this when, or if I die?" Harry wondered. If that were the case then it would mean that he too would be immortal like Voldemort. Voldemort. Harry wondered what had become of that vile being. He was in no doubt that the creature that was once Hogwarts' brightest student was still alive, in one way or another, after all he did reach immortality. For about the thousandth time Harry cursed the minister for doing away with him before he had a chance to finish Riddle off and end that dratted prophesy.

*****************************************************************************************

At the time when Harry escaped the body of the dementor, Dumbledore was sat in his office, planning for the next inevitable attack, one he was sure would spell the end for all those that resided within the boundaries of Hogwarts. There was nothing that could be done unless Hermione got that generator up and running, but she still needed another day or two to complete it.

"Good evening, Albus" Alastor 'Mad eye' Moody greeted as he and the rest of the Order Of the Phoenix arrived in his office.

"Hello everyone, thank you for coming. I fear this will be the last meeting we will hold before the next attack, and if we don't find a way to defend ourselves the last meeting all together." Dumbledore said in way of an opening speech.

"Surely things aren't that desperate, Albus?" Tonks asked

"I'm afraid so, more and more people are deferring over to the death eaters, believing that they are the future, we are loosing more people everyday and the wards will not last much longer, there is only so much I can do for them." Dumbledore explained with a weary look on his face.

"Is'nt there anything that can be done?" Ron questioned.

"There is nothing that I can think off, except for the generator Hermione is preparing, but I fear it will not be operational in time." Dumbledore said and then he looked at Hermione and asked for an update on its completion.

"I'm afraid I've ran into a problem, it isn't anything major, but a problem none the less. It will take about a day to fix and another to complete." Hermione said with tiredness evident in her voice. She had most likely been putting in all of the hours she possibly could to get the thing working in time for the defense of what was shaping up to be the final battle. Just as Dumbledore was about to continue the meeting he was swept off his feet by a surge of power unlike any he had felt before.

"Albus are you okay?"

"Professor, so you need Madame Pomfrey?" 

"It isn't the wards is it?"

were some of the quick fired questions directed at him from the assembled group of defenders of the light.

"I'm fine and no it was not the wards, it was a power surge, one unlike any I have ever felt. It was not only powerful, but it had a different taste to it than magic" Dumbledore explained as only a sorcerer could with their extra magical awareness.

"Was it dark, or light?" Snape asked from his dark corner.

"Neither, like I said it was different. If it was Riddle then we are all done for. I want it checked out as soon as possible, no doubt riddle will have felt it also if he was not the one behind it." Dumbledore commanded.

"I'll go" Remus volunteered.

"Me too" Ginny said, stepping forward from the back of the room where she usually occupied.

"Very well then, the origin of it was London, a block or two from where the Leaky Cauldron used to be." Dumbledore told them and with a nod from each the left the office and headed to the portkey room, where they portkeyed to London.

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"Nott" screamed a very serpentine voice.

"Yes master?" Nott said as he entered the room, head bowed.

"I want you to check something out for me, take with you a group of trainees. There was a magical surge from London, not far from where the Leaky Cauldron was. Find out what it was and if possible bring it to me." Voldemort commanded his servant.

"Yes master" Nott said, kissed his masters feet and left the room without turning his back or looking upon his master.

"That power will soon be mine." Voldemort hissed to his snake, Nagini with a rare and abnormal smile.

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Harry woke with a jolt, and quickly looked all around him, taking in his surroundings and making sure that he was not in the dark lords clutches. After the initial sweep of the area the memories of last night came back to him and he looked down to find that he was sitting, naked, on a cold steel table and all around him were skeletons, ashes (from the dementors when his aura got them too) and two halves of a Fudge.

"Holy Shit" Harry mumbled out before he remembered his dream, and that a group of death eaters were on their way. Though Harry was powerful, he didn't intend to fight just yet, he was aching all over and his magic needed to recharge from the transformation. After a quick look around the location Harry located some cloths that were roughly his size and changed and then with a final look around (And a malicious grin towards fudge) he aparated away to Diagon alley where he hoped to floo to Hogwarts. He still had no idea how long he had been gone or what the situation of the wizarding world was, though he would soon find out.

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When Ginny and Remus landed in London they immediately began searching the surrounding buildings (Those that had not been destroyed by 'terrorists' as the muggle prime minister had insisted. Ginny had wanted to come for two reasons, the first being that she was tired of being cooped up in the castle for so long and having Hermione give her pitying looks for not accepting Harry's death, even though she had. She just didn't react as badly as everyone else because while everyone else felt Harry's love leave them when his life did, Ginny did not, of course she didn't know this, she just assumed everyone else still felt it, and everyone else assumed she felt like they did, but was just in denial so they all continued to try and help her despite her reassurance that she was fine and that Harry was still with her. The second reason she decided to come along was because that love she felt was gradually getting stronger and stronger so she wanted to see what it meant and she knew she would find no answers stuck within the confines of the Hogwarts grounds.

"Where to now?" Ginny asked Remus.

"Why don't we try the next block over?" he suggested, earning a nod from Ginny. They searched the next block of buildings that were still standing until Remus stopped them.

"Hold on there Ginny. I've never seen this building before, and I used to come by here frequently. I think this might be the place we're looking for." Remus said as they both approached the emaculatly kept front door. The building looked severely out of place where it was, surrounded by crumbling ruins while it was looking as though it was made not a day ago.

They both krept into the building and through the entrance hall to the main part, but whatever they were expecting to find, it was not the sight that beheld them. There was scattered skepetons all over the place, what looked like a muggle mortuary table that the dead lie on and several magical instaments that Remus had no clue what they did.

"Oh my god, Remus come and look at this" Ginny gasped. While Remus had been looking around Ginny had walked over to the only body that looked like it could be identifiable. As Remus got closer and closer to the body he noticed that it was not a body, only half.

"What in merlins name happened to him, or her?" Remus queeried.

"I don't know, but perhaps the other half of the body is on the other side of this wall." Ginny suggested. Remus nodded and they both went through the door into the tidy office. The other half of the body indeed was on the other side of the wall but it was not on the floor, it was dangling by the thread of its clothes that the glass had failed to cut through,

"Who is it?" Ginny asked, trying to keep her dinner.

"Why do I have to look?" Remus asked nervously.

"Because youre older, because you're a man and because if you don't then ill spill my dinner all over you" Ginny listed, and so Remus, knowing defeat when he saw it relented and moved over to the body to identify it.

"I don't believe it" Remus said moments later, all feelings of sick forgotten.

"What? Who is it?" Ginny asked.

"It's Fudge!" Remus exlclaimed, getting to his feet again.

"But isn't he supposed to be dead?" Ginny asked.

"In case you cant see, he all ready is." Remus said.

"You know what I mean!" Ginny snapped.

"Yes, yes. I know. Come on I don't think we're going to find anything else here, we might as well report back to Dumbledore." Remus suggested and so they both pulled their portkeys out were just about to activate them when they heard voices.

"Hold on" Remus whispered.

"This looks like the place, Our lord wishes for us to find the object or person that caused the surge, fan out all of you and search this place" Said the voice, obviously a death eater.

"Well it looks like it wasn't Riddle then" Ginny whispered.

"Thank Merlin, come on lets get out of here" Remus said and they both activated their portkeys and were gone with a soft 'pop' before any of the death eaters found them.

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"What on earth happened?!" Harry gasped as he took in the crumbling remains of Diagon Alley. Every where he looked there was destruction, the buildings were nothing but borders of foot high walls represented what they once were. Everything was gone, even Ollivanders, all gone. Harry didn't know how long he had been away for, but judging by the state of the alley he knew it was long enough, so resigning himself to fate of Diagon Alley Harry screwed his face up in concentration and for the first time in both this life and his previous Harry changed into his second animagus form, the Quezacotl and in flash of green lightning he was off to Hogwarts.

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Not long after Remus and Ginny had left for the source of the power surge the alarm was raised and everyone was quick to find their posts. Riddle had began his final assault on the grounds. The emergency portkeys were activated and the fighters and some field healers were portkeyed into the battle ground to try and hold off the forces of the dark for as long as they could. There was the usual creatures assembled, but more of them this time, especially of the dead army. They had been modified as Riddle became more efficient in necromancey, they no longer carried death with them, and they were more sentient so they could react better to the battle situation, also they were each charge with some amount of magic, not enough for an unforgivable but enough for a few good goes at some of the darkest spells. There were dementors also as well as the death eaters, the upper class of whom had been gifted with more magic from their Lord, making things harder for the light. Also with the dark forces were a few giants who had strayed from their clans.

"Dear merciful god" Dumbledore whispered as he took in the scene. This was to be the last battle, he knew. They didn't have enough resources or man power to hold them all off for long. 

"Alright, listen up everyone, this could very well be the last time we take a stand against Riddle, and it could be the last time any one carries hope for a long time, but even if we fail here tonight, we will be safe with the knowledge that there will always be others!" Dumbledore shouted over the racket the dark forces made as they came closer and closer. Dumbledore speech elicited a cheer from the assembled fighters and for the first time in years they all felt like the battle was worth it, that eventually they would win, even if they were no longer among the living. And so the battle began, the forces of light putting up a fine resistance, killing off dementors with multiple patroni, sending the dead army back to the ground where they came from with reductor and banishment spells to burry them and disarming, or disposing of the death eaters whenever they got the chance. If one were to look on at the battle they would see a sight that inspired hope into the forces of light, for there was a solitary figure that was cutting through the forces with such apparent ease and with such speed that one would be mistaken to believe he were a god. Dumbledore was using all he had against the enemy, wandless and wand magic, the absorbing of free magic and many other little tricks he had come across in his many years to take them out. He was untouchable, whenever a curse was fired at him, it would be absorbed, when ever a dead soldier got too close it was melted by his aura and when ever a dementor was near the Patronus of bees that circled him would attack until it was no more. Things were not looked quite so bad for the side of the light, it seemed that Dumbledore's speech had inspired the 'troops'. The light were not without their share of casualties however, Dumbledore had passed many of his fallen comrades, and each one served to only feed his emotion and thus feed his magic, inflicting his wrath upon any unlucky soul that was to cross him.

Hours passed in a blur, the light side holding off the enemy and slowly but surely pushing them back from the grounds. Each metre that the forces receded served to strengthen the light side, each fallen death eater, giant and dementor feed their hope and each fallen victim fed their magic, until one person took it all away with nothing but his presence. Voldemort was here. They all knew he had to be somewhere near by for the army to be commanded, but they never imagined that he would be so close. All around the battle that had been raging for hours seemed to slow to a silent stop, everyone looked on at Voldemort, waiting to see what he would do, or looking on a Dumbledore, hopping he had something that could help them all.

"Well Dumbledore, here we are again. Only this time I see now boy hero for you to have come rescue you." Voldemort sneered. Dumbledore knew he was in trouble, he could sense that Voldemort had increased his power even more somehow. He also knew that he would not last long in a one on one duel against him because his own magic was being drained by the assault on the wards and also from all of the magic he had done while battling.

"There will always be someone Tom, if not me or Harry, then someone else." Dumbledore said, not allowing any of the emotion he was feeling to creep into his voice or show on his face.

"Maybe there will always be someone to defy me, someone with great power, but never as great as mine. You see since the last time we met I have been doing a little studying. It seems that I have another talent I had not considered, or thought useful before. After that duel with Potter I saw that it had more uses than I thought. So I spent the years practicing with it once I unlocked the power, as well as increasing my own magic power. The result is that now I am unchallenged. No one in this world can stand up to my greatness." Riddle said, with his sneer still in place. As he finished his monolog he raised his hands and something happened that Dumbledore, or anyone else, phoenix member and death eater alike, expected to happen. Shards of ice began shooting out of his hand and collecting into a ball above his head, it grew and grew and grew until moments later it stopped growing and began forming into a shape, the shape of a serpent with wings, and many, many horns, fangs and other pointy bits.

"Now attack!" Voldemort bellowed and the ice creature swooped over the crowd, shooting off large icicles from its underbelly as if flew over the light wizards. Many tried firing spells at it but nothing seemed to be working.

"Put up physical shields, transfigure anything you can to cover yourselves, now!" Dumbledore screamed at his army.

"It's no use old man, the elemental animals never get tired, it will continue assaulting until there is nothing left to assault or I command it to stop" Voldemort said with glee. This was it, Dumbledore thought, there was nothing that anyone could do against an elemental creature, his army was dieing and he did not have the power in him to challenge Riddle. It seemed everything was over.

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A/N: There you are, another chapter done. I find it easier to write this fic, I don't know if its because I've been thinking about this part for longer or what. Just don't expect a chapter every day, though I will get one out f I can (Except weekends probably) to those of you who reviewed and actually left something positive, for both last chapter and chapter 18 of rising war thank you, it boosted my confidence in the fic. To those of you who saw it necessary to tell me how much I sucked for killing Harry without even reading the authors note explaining about the sequel then I ask that in future you get your facts straight before leaving a review. I saw absolutely no point in the reviews telling me how much I ruined the fic when all along I have said there will be a sequel, and then for not waiting for everything to be explained before leaving your reviews saying so. If it annoys you so much then simply don't read it.

Until Next Time.

                        GG


	3. A Fallen Hero Will Rise

**Harry Potter and The Rise Of A Champion**

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**Chapter Three: A Fallen Hero Will Rise**

As Harry flew closer and closer to Hogwarts he began to feel a pain in the spot on his head where his scar would have been. 'He can't be there!' Harry thought desperately, he didn't have much magic at his disposal, and he had just managed to beat him last time and that was with all of his skills combined. 

It didn't take long for Harry to reach Hogwarts, it seemed that there was some subconscious magic being used to speed up the flight of his form. 'Too bad it didn't work for that automatic disappearing thing Fawks and Tronza can do'. As Harry approached his final destination he began to notice the situation, not far away from an enlarged boundary surrounding Hogsmeade from Hogwarts there was a battle going on, or rather an extermination and the forces of the light side did not seem to be the ones doing the exterminating.

'Damn it!' Harry swore. 'I'm going to have to get a closer look' He decided and then swooped down closer to the battle but not close enough to be spotted for what he was, yet.

'What the hell is that!' Harry thought furiously, it looked like a giant elemental serpent, but that couldn't be right… could it? How long was he really out for? It must have been years if Riddle had managed Elemental abilities.

"It's no use old man, the elemental animals never get tired, it will continue assaulting until there is nothing left to assault or I command it to stop" Voldemort said with glee.

'Damn, Damn, Damn. Dumbledore what are you doing!' Harry thought angrily, it was quiet obvious to him that Dumbledore was not as strong as he once was, double that with being exhausted also and it was plain to see that unless someone with power intervened it was all over. Just as Harry had decided to make his presence known something both good and bad happened. The feeling that raised Harry, the feeling of unconditional Love intensified to such a level that Harry felt indestructible, but the bad thing was Remus and Ginny popped into existence right in the path of the Elemental serpent's path, they were either going to get hurt badly or die and Harry was too far away to help!

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During the transition from London back to Hogwarts using the portkey Remus felt a shift, more a jolt and knew the wards had been erected to their full, which meant only one thing… an attack. As they arrived at their new destination however the scene that beheld them was not what they had expected.

"Move!" Dumbledore cried out but he knew they wouldn't react quick enough so he did the only thing he could, he aparated to them, erected the best shield he could given the amount of time he had to do so and prayed to whatever gods were listening that Remus and Ginny would be alright.

A fraction of a second after the shield went up Albus felt the assault of deadly icicles being fired at it, and for a moment he thought it would hold, but then another attack began, this time a jet of water that had enough power behind it to literally cut through a building.

"aaarrrggghhh!" Dumbledore cried out as he felt his shields begin to drop.

"Move!" he screamed at Remus and Ginny.

"What about you?" Remus asked desperately

"I'll be fine, just go" He replied with a strained voice, sweat pouring off his face and body shaking terribly. Not wanting to disobey their leader they quickly aparated out of the situation to a safe spot. Once they were gone and Albus knew they were safe he prepared for what he knew was coming, what he had been waiting for since the passing of his student, of his grandson: the next great adventure, Death.

"Goodbye my friends" He whispered as he released his shields.

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As Harry began to think up a quick strategy as he leaped into the air he saw Dumbledore aparated to Remus' and Ginny's aid and put up a hasty shield for them. Seeing that it would hold for the moment he decided on his course of action, though it was risky. Flying up into the air, above the serpent he began to concentrate, willing the aid that he now knew he had control over, that he knew was his to command and that he knew now was the reason he was able to fix his roof so easily on that stormy night. He began to call the lightning.

'Come to me, please, come one' he repeated over and over in his mind, occasionally looking down to check on the battle, Dumbledore was saying something to Remus and Ginny that they apparently didn't agree on and Riddle was laughing like a maniac while his creation began hitting the shield with a water canon type attack.

After a few seconds with nothing happening and seeing that now Dumbledore was alone and preparing to die Harry got frustrated and tried screaming out, except it come out as a single, beautiful note that was heard all over the battle field causing many of the forces of light to look around for the source and for Voldemort to clutch his ears and scream in pain. Almost straight away the sky darkened, clouds formed and lightning flashed, striking Harry and filling him with such energy that, combined with the feeling he had would make him momentarily unstoppable.

Just as his shield dropped Harry let the lightning loose on the creature, while forming an elemental shield of fire around Dumbledore that took most of the attack.

"What is this, what's happening!" Riddle screamed as his serpent started to crack due to the high amount of electricity that was being channelled to it.

'Yes! Now to finish it, here goes' Harry said to himself as he collected together the last of his magic and shot it from his mouth (the magical channel to his brain being used this time) to the creature which was unable to protect itself. 

"No! Who is that, who is doing that!" Riddle screamed again, now becoming more and more worried. In desperation he began trying to add more ice to the creature to try and help it out, but it was all in vein because seconds later the wing exploded, with shards of electrically charged ice were embedded into death eaters. When the creature hit the floor it made one more vein attempt to get back up but it was useless. Seeing that it was nearly over Harry intensified the concentration of the fire aimed at the serpent. As soon as the intensified fire hit it, it exploded, but this time no chards of ice made it away as the intensity of the flam had melted it all away to steam.

Seeing his serpent creature was down Riddle did the only thing he could think of, he aparated away, as did the death eaters, taking the surviving various creatures with them. As the final one left the creature had exploded cried of victory rang out from most of the light side.

High in the sky Harry however was not quite so cheerful, he was struggling to retain his form long enough to get a safe distance to the ground, but with his exhausted magic supply that was easier said than done.

"What's that!" Someone cried out from the floor, pointing up at Harry.

"It looks like a.. a phoenix, but green and silver" another said.

"It's a Quezacotl" yet another said.

"Don't be stupid, they're extinct" The first said. By this time Harry had circled himself around the field in a downward spiral close enough to not be injured if he were to let himself fall to the floor.

"It's injured" Ginny said as she now noticed the marvellous creature. Before anyone else had chance to say anything else something extraordinary happened, the Quezacotl that had been flying gave off a soft pop and then in it's place was now a falling man. Without thought Ginny let her healing instincts take over and she rushed over to the man to help him. 

"What are you doing Ginny, he could be dangerous" Ron called out, but she didn't listen, instead she increased her pace, and Ron seeing that he was not going to stop his sister decided it best that he go with her just for protection so he hurried over to the fallen man with Hermione in toe as usual.

"Hello?" Ginny asked nervously when she was within hearing distance. The man had his back to her so she couldn't see if he was awake or not.

"uurgghhh" The figure groaned and rolled over onto his back, causing Ginny to stop dead in her stride and Ron to walk right into her.

"Ouch, Ginny what you do th.." Ron began but trailed off as he noticed the figure that was lying on the floor.

"Harry" Ginny gasped, not daring to believe it was him, but at the same time knowing in her heart that it was, she could feel that feeling she had had all along was larger, more prominent now.

"Yeah" Harry breathed out before unconsciousness claimed him.

"It Cant be, he's dead, six curses, I saw it" Ron was babbling while Hermione only stared on in shock, Ginny had broke down in tears now, all intentions of healing forgotten.

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"Albus? Albus can you hear me?" Remus asked desperately. As soon as the serpent thing had been blown from the sky he had rushed to his friends side.

"Remus?" Albus asked.

"Albus, where are you hurting?" Remus asked him.

"I don't know, I.. I cant feel anything" Albus whispered as the severity of his words washed over him.

"It doesn't matter, we'll get you fixed up, you're alive and that's all that matters" Remus said and then conjured a stretcher and carried the headmaster into the school and up to the hospital wing, leaving the battlefield before he had a chance to see his godson.

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Hours later news had got around the forces of the light side that their saviour was none other than Harry Potter, though few believed it and the ones that did were sceptical about his loyalties. Currently the man in question was asleep in the hospital wing, undergoing test after test to ensure he was who they all thought.

"It is nothing short of a miracle." Poppy Pomfrey at last said, breaking the silence of the room. As soon as she saw who he was she had taken Harry to a private room, to avoid questions that were best left said until later.

"Harry" Ginny whispered, stroking a hand down the side of his face, earning a subconscious smile from Harry.

"But how is this possible?" Ron asked, the first coherent thing he had said since discovering him.

"That is a question that is best left answered by Harry himself, I could speculate but I'm sure that they would be nothing more than wild theories" The Hogwarts matron said to the group of assembled fighters.

"So what's wrong with him then?" Hermione asked finally.

"Exhaustion, his magical supply must have been low when he arrived here, and from what I have heard about the battle I am surprised that he lasted as long as he did." She explained

"Is it okay if we stay with him?" Ron asked her.

"It will be fine, however I am sure that there are other people that need to be informed of this 'discovery'" She said with a smile before leaving the room.

"I'll go and inform the headmaster and Remus" Ginny said. The other two nodded their okays and Ginny left the room in search of the headmaster, she didn't have to look far however because he was in a bed near the room Harry was being kept.

"Professor!" Ginny gasped and hurried over to his side. "Are you okay?" she asked, then mentally slapped herself for asking such a stupid question, he obviously wasn't okay, otherwise he wouldn't be in the hospital wing.

"Yes miss Weasley, I will live, though I doubt I will be as mobile as I once was, I have lost the ability to control my legs and my left arm" Dumbledore replied wearily, the twinkle lost from his eyes and a frown upon hs face making him look fifty years older.

"I'm sorry professor, isn't there anything that can be done at all?" Ginny asked with concern, momentarily forgetting Harry.

"I am afraid not, I am crippled from battle and Hogwarts is vulnerable. We were lucky this time, but the next time we wont be. I will be able to move myself around with my magic, but I would not be able to sustain it during a battle with Voldemort. I'm afraid we are now living on borrowed time." Dumbledore said wearily, and with such defeat in his voice that Ginny was sure he was slipping into depression, but she had a surprise for him that would make the depression short lived.

"Professor what do you remember about the end of the battle?" Ginny asked him.

"I had dropped my shield, because I knew that I was done for, but before the serpent had time to hit me full on a shield of fire surrounded me, and the attacks slowed to a stop, after that I only remember Remus coming to me and then being here. Who was the person that conjured the shield?" Dumbledore explained, then asked her, surprised that magic was able to hold off the elemental attacks.

"Sir, what I'm going to tell you is not a joke, and has been confirmed." Ginny informed him, and when she received a nod from the headmaster to continue she did so, trying to word it so that it did not further injure the old man with the shock of it.

"Sir, you're saviour, well our saviour was erm, well… it was h… Harry" She said.

"Harry?" Dumbledore said, his face going blanc and a far away looking his eyes.

"Are you sure?" he asked, completely forgetting that Ginny had said it was confirmed.

"Yes, madame Pomfrey did all the tests that she knew, it is defiantly him, though he is asleep at the moment, he was exhausted from using such power." Ginny explained to him.

"Power?" He asked with a confused look upon his face.

"Yes, he was flying in the sky as a Quezacotl, a magical animagus so that probably took a lot of his already low magical supply, then there was the controlling of the lightning and fire." Ginny explained.

"He has the magical abilities of the Quezacotl also? Yes that makes sense, as we were nearing completion of his form, he was experienced the lightning power, though we didn't know it was tha at the time." Dumbledore said mostly to himself. Ginny was please to see that Dumbledore seemed to become more like hi sold self again, though there was still a hint of depression in his eyes.

"Where is he staying?" Dumbledore asked.

"In that room just there, when Madame Pomfrey says so either you are he can visit, depending on who heals the quickest." Ginny told him with a smile.

"I shall be by later this afternoon" Dumbledore said in a tone that suggested there would be no arguing.

"okay sir, now do you know where remus is?" Ginny asked.

"He just stepped out to asses the damages, he should be back here soon, would you like me to sen him over when he arrives?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes please sir." Ginny said and then left with "Hope you get better soon".

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"Did you find them?" Ron asked Ginny as she came into the room. 

"I found Dumbledore. He was in a bad way." Ginny said as she took a seat at the side of Harry's bed.

"What do you mean? He is okay isn't he?" Hermione asked, worried for her mentor.

"Harry wasn't able to fully protect him from the attack, he has lost the use of both legs and his left arm." Ginny explained. Hermione's response was a gasp and Ron's was predictably anger.

"When is this going to end? When will we be able to live? How long can it go on?" Ron almost shouted.

"Not much longer" A voice croaked out.

"Harry?" Ginny screamed, and launched herself into his arms.

"Hey there. It's a good thing I showed up when I did, isn't it?" Harry said with a smile as he hugged Ginny back, rejoicing in the feeling of love that spread all over his soul.

"Is it really you?" Ron asked, with a ghost of a grin on his face which turned into a fully fledged grin when Harry nodded.

"Oh Harry, I've missed you so much, it was terrible when you were gone" Hermione cried as she took her turn in hugging Harry.

"Where is Dumbledore? Is he okay?" Harry asked as he remembered the events of only a few hours ago.

"He got hit Harry, not as bad as it would have been but, well he wont ever walk on his own legs again, and he has lost the ability to use his left arm" Ginny once again recounted.

"I have to see him" Harry said as he tried to get out of the bed, only to be held down by three pairs of arms.

"Oh no you don't mate, we've only just got you back, we aren't going to let you wonder about and make yourself worse. You'll leave only when Madame Pomfrey says so." Ron said in an unusually strict voice.

"okay, okay. When it's you who is doing the Hermione routine I know it's serious" Harry joked, causing Ginny to laugh and Hermione to blush.

"Hey you all look different, how old are you?" Harry asked as he looked at his friends properly.

"Nearly 21, you've been dead for 4 years" Ron said as the mood turned solemn.

"Actually I haven't" Harry said earning curious looks from his friends, he was just about to elaborate when there was a knock on the door and then Remus stuck his head through it.

"Hey guys, Dumbledore said you wanted to see me?" Remus said before he noticed his very alive, grinning godson sitting up in a bed.

"Hello Remus" Harry said timidly, not sure how he would react.

"Who are you? What kind of joke is this?" Remus asked as he stepped into the room properly and glared at them all, anger clearly evident in his voice.

"Remus this isn't a joke, it is really Harry." Hermione tried to reassure but he was having none of it.

"Really Remus, it is my, ask me a question that only I would know." Harry said.

"How did I wake you up on that night you stayed at Grimmauld place?" Remus asked, folding his arms across his chest, clearly expecting Harry not to know.

"You poured water all over me, claiming to have been trying to wake me for ages, I still don't believe you by the way." Harry said with a small smile playing at his lips.

"How could you know that?" he asked desperately.

"Because it is me, I am alive and I'm here." Harry reassured.

"Is it really you Harry?" he asked, daring not to hope for such a thing.

"Yes Moony, its me." Harry said.

"But how?" Remus asked, walking closer to Harry to inspect him.

"You look 16 again, have you used a time turner or something?" Remus queried as he took Harry's appearance in.

"No, I'll explain everything when Professor Dumbledore is here." Harry told them all.

It was a few hours later when there was once again a knock at the door, it was Madame Pomfrey to check up on Harry. She was surprised to see that he was sitting up and talking to the collected group of people, as if he hadn't just been in a coma recovering from a magical burn out.

"Mr Potter, I had not expected you to be awake for some time" She said.

"Well I'm not sure but I think the lightning ability hastens recovery for my magic. Electric does strange things to magic." Harry said as the matron began to check him over. A few minutes later he had received a clean bill of health and was told to take it easy on the magic for the next few weeks.

"Where is professor Dumbledore?" Harry asked as he prepared to leave the room.

"Just a little way up the ward, you should see him when you come out of here." Ginny told him. Harry had decided he would speak to Dumbledore on his own first and then the group could come and join them a little later to hear the explanation of why Harry was once again among the living.

"Okay thanks, I'll see you in a little while." Harry said and they all parted ways just outside the room. Many of the beds had their curtain drawn around them, but the ones that didn't had patients in them that were either unconscious or sleeping. Harry quickly spotted Dumbledore, resting in a bed that was opposite his room and over a few spaces. He quietly walked over to him and placed his hand on Dumbledore's right one. 

"Professor?" Harry said quietly, not wanting to startle him.

"Professor, wake up." Harry tried again, and this time he managed to rouse his old headmaster from his nap.

"How are you feeling?" Harry asked him, knowing that he would try and put up a façade, pretend that everything was fine.

"Harry? Is it really you? I wasn't sure if I should believe, but... it is you" Dumbledore said once he had placed his half moon spectacles on and looked closely at Harry. Harry noticed that there were tears coming from his mentors eyes.

"It is me professor. I am so sorry I wasn't able to protect you better, but I had just gone through my sorcerer transformation and my magic was low. I'm sorry I failed you." Harry said, letting tears escape his eyes.

"Harry do not be sad for what I have lost, but be happy for what I have kept. Without you I would not be here any longer. Destiny obviously has more in store for me, today was not my end, rather a new beginning." Dumbledore said, eliminating his guilt in the way only he was capable of.

"I will find a way to help you professor, no matter what you say I will always feel the need to make it up to you." Harry said and smiled at the man.

"And I shall look forward to the day when I shall be able to walk at your side into battle" Dumbledore replied, giving Harry a one armed hug.

"Is it okay to come over now?" Remus asked, interrupting the moment.

"Yes, I think we have finished, unless you have more to say Harry?" Dumbledore said in his 'I'm in control tone' that many had feared they would never hear again.

"I'm finished." Harry said with a smile. Once everyone had settled around the bed and Remus had performed a silencing bubble around them Harry began his story.

"Now, as you all know I was hit with 6 killing curses at the final battle, and they all succeeded in doing their job, I was dead. All I remember was the initial impact and then no more, that is until I became aware of myself as a spirit, I don't know why but I got a feeling, it was the firs thing I was aware of. It was a feeling of love, I can feel it now, it's stronger than it has ever been" Harry said, glancing at Ginny as he said the last bit, not noticing that Hermione caught the little peak. "Anyway I was aware of myself and I felt love, that feeling was giving me the will to return, and I suspect that had I not had all of the ties still to my body I would have returned as a ghost, but as it were I was still linked by my wandless magic and so I was able to access my core, and more specifically my second animagus form. I didn't know if it would work but I thought that if I was able to change it then it might pull my spirit back in, of course it worked but not as I thought it would. Apparently my form was that of a Quezacotl and so as my spirit re-entered it triggered off the equivalent of a phoenix burning day. I was reborn as a baby, but with a 17 year old's mind." Harry explained to them all, pausing because he could see that many of the group had questions.

"If you turned into a baby, how did you get out of the coffin?" Remus asked, confused.

"I wasn't in a coffin, I was on a metal mortuary table, Fudge tricked you as far as I can gather, he sent back a dud body and kept mine. He was trying to steal my magic or find a way to posses my body." Harry explained.

"Then it was you that caused all that destruction?" Ginny asked with wide eyes and a smirk on her face.

"What are you talking about?" Ron asked, more than a little confused.

"When the professor felt that surge and sent me and Remus top investigate, well we found the place, it looked to be brand new on the outside but inside it was literally torn to pieces." Ginny explained.

"That would be my fault, when I transformed from wizard to sorcerer, my second animagus form decided to make its abilities known… as I was transforming I think my magic conjured the lightning because it struck my aura and then it all lashed out at everyone in the room, including the dementors." Harry explained.

"Dementors?" Dumbledore asked with a frown. "I thought they all defected over to Riddles side?"

"Hang on, ill get back to the story, it should be explained along the way" Harry told them all and then once again launched into the explanation.

"Once I was back in my body and alive Fudge started ranting about raising me to be his weapon, I think he was insane, of course I was aware of myself so I did the only thing I could" Harry said, leaving a pause where nearly everyone shouted 'what?'

"I blew a raspberry at him." Harry said and grinned earning laughter from the group.

"Anyway when he was sure that I was me so to speak he gave the order for the dementors kiss to be given, Twat. Anyway for the last four years apparently I have been residing within a dementor. I was greatly affected by it at first but after a while that feeling I told you about built up a resistance to the affects so I was able to think coherently. For four years I was drawing upon the free magic, having none of my own, getting ready to cast a patronus to disturb the dementor and make it open its mouth, when that happened I used the last of the magic and my wandless link to get back to my body that was now around my 15 year old self, apparently it doesn't take long for me to age again after I have died. When I was in my body well it was like I explained earlier, transformation, lightning, destruction." Harry told them all, all the while with a fart away look in his eyes.

"You should have seen fudges body, it was cut in two by a piece of glass, and it looked like he had been electrocuted." Ginny said with an evil grin on her face.

"Good, that bloody bastard deserved it, I hope he is rotting in hell" Ron said with a wolfish grin.

"Me too Ron, me too." Harry said with a smile.

The group of friends talked well into the night, laughing and catching up and just enjoying having their friend back from the dead. 'This is what living is for, this is why I came back' Harry said smiling and unconsciously looking at Ginny.  

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**A/N: There you are you lucky people, an update on the weekend. I have to say to all those that have reviewed with something positive that if it were not for you I would not be even attempting this fic, some of the reviews I have had for the final chapter of Rising War were very disheartening. They made me want to just delete the whole thing, but then I get reviews such as from Orion Potter saying how great he thinks this fic is going to be from just two chapters or TuxedoMac telling me how original he thinks it is it feeds my muse and helps rebuild my self esteem. This fic belongs just as much to my loyal reviewers and readers as it does to me so I would like to say a big, big thank you to all you people out there in fanfiction land. Hopefully in the next couple of days ill have a website up with some 3d art for rising war, rise of a champion and three other fics I have planned. Hope you enjoy!**

**To clear up a few things, firstly the phoenix travel thing, queried by Numba1. I had originally intended to do that but then I got to thinking, Harry wouldn't have much magic energy and it was the first time in the form so he wouldn't know how to do all of the things that the form was capable of. Good thinking though and well done for remembering that it was a relative of the phoenix.**

**Another thing to clear up is the whole rebirth and aging thing. Harry will age as normal but when he dies from unnatural causes i.e the killing curse then he would be reborn as a baby, spend 4 years growing to the age of 15 just before the transformation, transform and grow normally. Bare in mind however that Harry looked older than he was anyway so he looks about the same age as most others that are 19 – 21.**

**Lastly the whole fudge issue, I didn't make it prominent in the fic but there was a trial fudge and the auras had to go to, and seeing as fudge was minister and carried a bit of weight (political) within the ministry he was able to sway things his way, though there was a public outcry (Thus the press conference both of which are mentioned in the opening para) but before much more was able to happen Voldemort cracked the ministry open and destroyed it.**

**Well that's all I have for this post. Hope you enjoy.**

**Until Next time.******

**                        GG**


	4. Through It All, Hope Still Remains

**Harry Potter and The Rise Of A Champion**

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**Chapter Four: Through It All, Hope Still Remains**

The days after Harry had recovered were very hectic for everyone at Hogwarts keep as it was unofficially named, news had broke of Dumbledore's condition and hope was diminished greatly, and reports were coming in that some people were going over to the death eaters. After the fifth such report Dumbledore sighed heavily to himself.

"I think we need to take some drastic action Harry, the light is losing hope. Soon there will be no one left to fight." Dumbledore said wearily from behind his desk.

"Don't worry; there will always be one of us fighting professor, and where there is one, there will soon be others. What do you intend to do?" Harry said in response to the headmaster's statement.

"I think we need to call together the army and reintroduce you. Clear a few things up and restore hope." He said.

"Hmm, sounds like a good idea, but from what I've been told I'm considered as bad as Riddle. Unless you have something extravagant up your sleeve to convince them then I don't think that they are gonna' believe it." Harry said with a frown. He hated that everyone thought he was a dark wizard. All that he and his family had sacrificed in the past should have been enough for the sceptics, but as usual the sheep had followed their shepherd, Fudge, and now look at what had happened.

"Don't worry Harry; I know exactly what will convince them. It will require a small demonstration on your part however." Dumbledore said with the twinkle in his eyes that had been more intense recently than in previous years. Harry had now identified where the twinkle came from, Hope. It wasn't amusement or knowledge, it was hope. When there was laughter, that gave the headmaster hope, when there was more knowledge that gave him hope, and when Harry was around that gave him hope, and if the pillar of the light wizarding community had hope then the rest did too.

"I'll do what it takes." Harry sighed.

"Good to hear it"

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"Welcome everyone; I am sure you are all curious as to why you have all been summoned here. To answer your question it is to dispel all of the rumours that have been running amuck. As you can all see I have lost the ability to use my legs, and my left arm, however I am not out of the fight yet. Do not loose hope because I can not be at your side during battle, do not loose hope because you have no one to lead you to victory, for in my fall comes the rise of a greater leader, of a greater hope, of a greater champion. I wish for you all to welcome back Harry Potter." Dumbledore said, opening the gathering of all white wizards that were not on duty, he was clearly visible to them all, floating on the stage with self sustained charms. 

"He gives us no hope, he's a dirty traitor" Shouted one of the wizards.

"Tell me Cid, how could he be a traitor to the light when his very animagus form is a creature that is devoted unwaveringly to the light?" Dumbledore asked calmly, and then all but shouted "I Give you Harry Potter!" taking this as his queue Harry flew down from the support beams near the roof of the much expanded great hall to land next to Dumbledore on the stage and then transformed amid a collective exclamation of 'Ooohhhs' and 'Aaahhhs'

"Good evening, I trust you are all rested well from the battle?" Harry said as he gazed upon the only remaining fighters of light.

"How do we know that you're really Harry Potter?" a witch called out from the front.

"Is there anyone among you lot who knew me from my school days?" Harry asked, and when several people stuck their hands up Harry asked them to all come up to the stage.

"Okay then, I want each and every one of you to ask me a question or to do something you know only Harry Potter could know or do, okay?" Harry asked, loud enough for everyone to hear. The first up was Ron.

"How did we get to school in our second year?" he asked.

"After Dobby the house-elf blocked the barrier between platforms nine and ten we decided to use your fathers flying ford Anglia to get to school, though we got into a load of trouble once we got there." Harry answered confidently.

"That's right" Ron said as he stepped to the side to allow Hermione to go next, then Ginny, then Remus, then Mr Weasley, Mrs Weasley, Fred and George, Katy, Alicia, Oliver Wood etc.

"Does any one else require any more proof?" Harry asked, and as expected was met with silence.

"Excellent, now I would like to clear some things up. The first of which is the accusation of me being the next dark lord. As you all know I have a great power, I don't like to boast about it but I have it. With that power I could have easily over thrown Riddle and taken his place long before now." Harry told them all with an even voice.

"So if you can defeat him easily why is he still here, and still a threat?"  someone asked.

"Because if I were to be the next dark lord then I would have no problems undergoing the same grotesque transformations Tom Riddle and Draco Malfoy did, I would have no problems subjecting myself to the darkest of arts. Times may be bad, terrible even but I would sooner die than sink to such a level. I know trust has been destroyed but if you give me the chance I would gladly march on to the battle field by your side, not as a hero, or as a saviour, but as an equal!" Harry said, gaining more volume as he spoke. There was silence for the smallest of moments before the hall erupted in a wild cheer, a cheer so full of energy and life that it lightened the hearts of everyone, much like a phoenix could do. 

"Thank you, Harry. And thank you to all of you, it takes a great person to admit they were wrong, and an even greater person to give someone a second chance. You have all displayed today what we have been fighting for, for centuries, never forget that it is there even in the darkest of times, never forget to love, be happy and have hope"

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The assembly that had taken place in the great all had renewed the fighting spirits in each and every member of the Keep, and those that were on duty and had not been able to join were either told of the happenings or watched them in the odd pensieve that was available. On a whole the moral was as high as ever and the desertions over to the dark side were less to zero a day.

"Ginny, could you go and find Harry for me, I need his help with this generator; I just can't figure something out" Hermione called to Ginny who was currently reading a book on charms on Hermione's bed. She quite often spent time reading in her friends private room, it was the quietest place to read, and Hermione was usually there for help if she got stuck with a particular piece of magic.

"Sure, just give me a second and I'll be right on it." Ginny replied. A few moments later she was off to find Harry, who was no doubt in his new set of rooms. She remembered a few days ago when Harry was shown his room and he had requested something of Dumbledore, though he wouldn't tell any one else until the room was finished. Once it was finally done both Harry and Dumbledore proudly showed off their work to the group of friends. Harry had requested a room that would mimic the room of requirements. Since then Harry would often lock himself in there with the excuse of 'brushing up on 4 years of no practice and getting acquainted with his new skills'. 

Arriving at the room Ginny withdrew from her memories and was about to knock on the portrait that guarded the entrance when she heard the faint sound of his music. Of course if it sounded faint to her then it was very likely that it was deafening to anyone else within the room. Sighing Ginny provided the portrait with the password (Harry Potter is the Greatest) which was a private joke between him a Remus that had started up from a debate about pranking, escalating to an argument and finally finishing with a war in which Harry won, barely, due to his superior magic abilities ('I could have beaten him if could talk to snakes too' Remus had grumbled after 'the snake incident') and she entered his suite of rooms. 

Looking around once inside she saw that he was in his Room of Requirements so she headed over to it and bracing herself she thrust open the door to be assaulted by the intense music, chop suey she knew by system of a down, it was one of the favourites of Harry's. The sight that beheld her in the room however was not at all what she expected. The room itself was completely empty, save for the CD player, but the room was expanded to about the size of the great hall. In the middle of the room Harry was floating in mid-air, supported by nothing but his own will and magic, he was wearing nothing but some loose fitting black cotton trousers, and she could clearly see from where she was that his toned upper body was covered in sweat and it was glistening from the light supplied by hundreds of small green balls of pure energy that glowed and sped around in the room, avoiding being hit by the multiple forks of lightning that were striking seemingly in a random pattern. 

At the sight of it all Ginny couldn't move, it was all so beautiful, the lights, the lightning that flashed purple and the perfect sight of the man she loved, covered in sweat and concentrating solely on what he was doing, being calmed by the music (which was now Forest by system of a down). The sight was breath taking, and it made Ginny question the power that Harry really held, he was floating in mid air, controlling hundreds of balls of pure magic, while at the same time hitting them with bolts of purple lightning, all without the use of a wand. After a few minutes of watching him she came back to her senses and was just about to interrupt him when Harry spoke.

"Just a minute Gin, I just want to finish to this song." And true to his word once the song finished there were hundreds of flashes of light as Harry seemingly hit every single ball at once and dropped to the floor.

"How did you know I was here?" Ginny asked as Harry towelled himself off with a conjured towel, still with his back to her.

"There are many abilities that I possess, and reading ones mind is no exception, I had to let go of all blocks that I held in order to concentrate fully, I usually don't have that particular ability active." Harry explained.

"Then that means you were reading my mind the whole time I was here" Ginny asked with dread, she had been thinking about how much she loved him, and how hot he looked then.

"Well I wasn't then, I just knew you were there, but I did just then…" Harry trailed off, unsure what to say. He had heard Ginny's thoughts when she thought of Harry hearing what she was thinking when she first entered the room.

"Oh god…I… please don't hate me Harry, I couldn't help it, I can't help it, I love you" Ginny cried out, but finished in nothing but a whisper, all the while looking to the floor. She hadn't seen Harry turn around and approach, so she was startled by the feel of his hands gently holding the tops of her arms.

"Ginny, I didn't know, I mean I knew but I didn't know it was more than just the friendly sort of love" Harry began softly, he was about to continue when Ginny looked up with disappointed eyes, with tears pooling in them and spoke.

"I knew you wouldn't feel the same, I knew you would use the 'I like you better as a friend' line, that's why I didn't say anything, why did you have to read my mind?! You knew I was here so there was no need!" Ginny said in a delicate voice at first but finished off all but shouting. Once she was finished she turned to leave as another song began to play, it was Bring Me To Life by Evanescence.

As soon as the words of the song hit his ears he knew he had to do something, something fast, something that he had wanted to do for so long, whether he knew it or not.

"Ginny! Wait!" he shouted and grabbed her wrist and spun her around, before she could say anything Harry looked straight into her eyes and said the words he had longed to say for years, the words he had longed to hear when he lived with the Dursley's when he was an infant.

"I love you" he whispered, his lips mere centimetres from hers. A gasp escaped her lips and Harry quickly drew her into his arms and kissed her tenderly on the lips, waiting for her to kiss back, and he didn't have to wait long.

When they came apart again they looked into each other eyes, looking for the slightest bit of regret, but finding only love, desire and happiness.

"You brought me back" Harry whispered into her ear as he leant down to kiss her on her cheek. His warm breath sent a shiver down her spine and she basked in the feeling in her heart. "It was you're feeling of love that made me come, it was you're love for me that saved me from the dementors. It was you who saved me."

"I felt you, I've felt you for all these years, when you're near I feel your love, I thought everyone could feel it, but I don't think they could. You stayed with me, protected me with your love… like with the love your mother protected you with." Ginny breathed, with her head tilted back and her eyes closed, lost in the feelings Harry was causing, and his touch on her skin, the closeness of his body.

After a few minutes of the tender embrace they both broke apart again and said at the same time, as they gazed into ach others eyes, loosing themselves in the depths of each others souls 'I love You' and sealed it with a kiss.

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It had been 15 minutes since Hermione had sent Ginny out to find Harry and she still wasn't back yet, so sighing in annoyance she set out to Harry's rooms to find him herself. Once she reached it however she saw something she had not expected, but was happy about nonetheless. Harry and Ginny were embracing and kissing, not the chaste kiss of siblings or friends, but a kiss of lovers, and Hermione could not be happier for them, she knew that Ginny had always had feelings for Harry and she was glad it was out in the open and that Harry returned the feelings, but she was also happy for Harry. In a time of death and war Harry was still able to find love, able to find someone that he could live for.

It was that last thought that completely froze Hermione to the spot. 'Some one he could live for… someone he could come back from the dead for. It was her, it was Ginny that gave him back to us' Hermione thought. With a soft smile she returned to Harry's sitting room and left a small note for him asking for his assistance when he got the time and then left the two alone.

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"What on earth is that!" Ginny gasped as they both made ready to leave the room. She had just noticed something on Harry's chest, aside from the gold lion pendant that she gave him for his birthday before her fifth year. Across Harry's chest was a large tattoo of a green and silver Quezacotl, wings spread across his chest with the tips resting just on his shoulders and the feet halfway down his stomach with the facing head slightly to the right of his neck. All around the image were also arcs of purple lightning. The whole thing looked amazing but she was surprised to see it there.

"Oh yeah, do you like it?" Harry asked sheepishly, now aware that he was not wearing a shirt.

"Well yeah, but when did you get it? I would have thought you would tell one of your friends" She said, looking a little hurt that he had kept a secret. Smiling at her being hurt at something as trivial as the tattoo Harry said "I would have told someone, only I didn't know I was getting it until I got it, and then it was only this morning it happened" 

"Oh, so why is it there?" she asked, confused over the whole thing.

"Well you see when a powerful wizard goes through a significant transformation that was not brought on by natural circumstances, i.e. becoming a sorcerer then the magic used to achieve such a transformation leaves its mark. With dark magic that is usually in the form of disfigurement using the animal that represents the wizard, so snake for Riddle and Dragon for Malfoy, but for light wizards who do similar things the mark is usually in the form of a tattoo, as you can see by this" Harry explained, gesturing to the bird on his chest.

"Well that makes sense, I just don't understand why of all things a tattoo?" Ginny asked.

"Well I don't really know either, but I'm not complaining I rather like it" Harry laughed as he and Ginny got comfortable on his sofa. After his explanation they fell into a comfortable silence, each reassured by the others presence and it was a long while before Harry noticed the note that Hermione had left for him.

"Gin?" Harry said quietly, not sure of she was still awake. When he received no answer he was certain she was asleep so he softly as he could dislodged himself from her embrace and lay her down on the sofa, covering her with a blanket and leaving a conjured white lily by her head on the pillow he supplied for her before writing a note telling her he had gone to meet Hermione.

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"I see that you were finally able to find a break in your romantical rendezvous with a certain someone to find time for us lesser women" Hermione joked when Harry entered her room.

"You saw us then" Harry said with a smile and twinkling eyes.

"You looked good together. I'm glad you are both able to find happiness together, it's about time for you both" Hermione said with a smile.

"So what's the problem doctor?" Harry mocked.

"I'm having trouble getting this damned generator you left plans for to work." Hermione said in frustration. It wasn't often that she had to ask for help from anyone, so when she did it usually was a big problem.

"What's up?" Harry asked as he plopped himself down next to the object in question.

"Well from the tests I've ran it seems that the generator just wont work, it gives out a shield, well what looks like on but when I fire a spell at it, it just passes right through it and ricochets around inside. I've tried everything I can thing of, I just don't know what's wrong with it." Hermione explained, and as she did so she noticed the smile on Harry's face grow and grow.

"What is it? Do you know what the problem is?" She asked half in hope and half in despair. If Harry got it straight away he would never let her live it down. At the node from him she knew she was doomed.

"It's really very simple Hermione, I'm surprised that you didn't think of it already. You say the spell pass through but ricochets inside, well then I would think it is safe to say the problem lies in the spell." Harry concluded happily.

"It doesn't, at first I thought it did, but after I checked and double checked and even got Dumbledore to check and recast it, it still doesn't work" she said with frustration leaking into her voice.

Harry Potter and The Rise Of A Champion

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Chapter Four: Through It All, Hope Still Remains

"I'm afraid I didn't make myself clear enough, the problem lies in the type of spell used. You see when you bring something from the muggle world here, the wards make it go crazy, that's because a greater amount of magic turns the muggle technology backwards, reverses the results, but if the amount of muggle technology, or even electricity alone is greater than the amount of magic used then the magic is reversed." Harry explained to her with a small smile playing at his lips. The smile seemed to be contagious because Hermione began to smile too.

"So you mean all we have to do is to cast the spell work to have the opposite effect of what we want and it will work?" she asked with hope in her eyes.

"That's exactly what I mean, and it doesn't stop there Hermione, there is even a way to block the unforgivables with this shield, all we have to do is increase the amount of electricity used in the shield and to make the extra electricity run through the shield and when the curse is fired at the shield the electricity should have enough power to reverse the spell, not enough to completely change it but enough to either change from un-blockable to blockable, or from killing curse to life curse!" Harry said with a fully fledged grin.

A few hours later the shield was finished and ready to be put to use.

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**A/N Terribly sorry for the long wait, it's been the Easter break here, and since I don't go to school I usually work when no one is around so I have peace, but my younger brother and sister have been off over the holidays and even before with the chicken pox, so I didn't get an awful lot of writing time in. however in the coming months hopefully I should be able to update more because I'll (hopeful) have a laptop so I can type in comfort.**

**To everyone who reviewed (and that's more people than I expected) thank you very much. I cant tell you all how good it makes me feel when I get a review from someone saying how much they love the fic. I want to thank you all for sticking with it even though I killed off Harry (if only for a small amount of time). The question about what happened to Harry's house will be answered in one of the next chapters (either the very next or the one after). Thanks again for the reviews and I hope you enjoy the chapter.**

**Until next time!**

**                                GG**


	5. Flammel Joins the Team

**Harry Potter and The Rise Of A Champion**

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**Chapter Five: Flammel Joins the Team**

The days after the shield went up were some of the most relaxed Hogwarts had experienced in years. People were able to relax safely with the knowledge that there was no curse in existence that could brake through the shield, and that the wards prevented the dark forces from stepping onto the grounds. All in all the light side were looking the best they had in years.

Whilst most people were enjoying their new found freedom some where still hard at work planning for the future.

"You wanted to see me sir?" Harry questioned the leader of the light, Albus Dumbledore.

"Ah Harry, it's good of you to come so fast, we have been discussing a few matters that before now we have had no hope to have anything come of them, but now with that marvellous shield we have more people at our disposal and we can breath easy for a while." Dumbledore explained, while at the same time giving Harry absolutely no useful information.

"So what is it you want me to do?" Harry asked as he took a seat in the only spare chair available. Looking around the room Harry could see that Dumbledore had called together his most trusted friends and allies.

"For a long time now we have had knowledge that there are several small contingents of resistance scattered across Britain, unfortunately we have no idea where exactly they are, or how they are doing. We have tried to contact them before now, but it has proven some what difficult. The deatheaters have been intercepting owls for a very long time so it would risk too much to send word by owl, and it is impossible to send Fawks when neither he or I know where to send. As for sending a group of wizards, well we have been so tied up with trying to defend this place that there has been no possible way for us to set something up." Dumbledore explained with his trade-mark twinkle in his eyes.

"And so you want to send me out to try and locate these people and bring them to you?" Harry asked, though he needn't have done so, as he already knew the answer to the question.

"Yes, I want you to take a small group of wizards with you and try to locate them, we have marked out general areas where we believe them to be, but nothing is solid. You may find it easier to locate them if you use you mind ability. Do you accept this mission?" the headmaster asked.

"Well it beats sitting around here all day, though it does have its perks" Harry answered, thinking about all of the time he had spent getting to know Ginny better.

"Excellent, you may pick your own team, please report back here in 3 hours with your choices. Until then." Dumbledore said with a smile. Harry nodded to everyone in the room before he retreated and headed straight for where he knew Ron to be.

"Of course I'll do it mate!" Ron exclaimed happily. Harry had just filling him in on his meeting with Dumbledore and asking him if he wanted to come along.

"When do we leave?" Ron asked enthusiastically.

"Two and a half hours, we're supposed to meet in Dumbledore's office and he'll answer any more questions we have." Harry answered as he prepared himself to go and find the next hopeful.

"Who else do you have in mind to take?" Ron asked

"I was thinking about either Hermione or Ginny and Remus, what do you think?" Harry asked. He could tell by the look on Ron's face at hearing Harry mention Ginny that he didn't think too much to that, but also he didn't think too much about the mention of Hermione either, so Harry was in a lose-lose situation really. He knew Ron would have a problem with this selection but there wasn't really anything he could do about that, he needed someone who would keep a level head, who could perform magic well and was very convincing. He had no doubt if they managed to find any of the resistance they would attack him, thinking he was evil.

"I think you should find someone else who is not my baby sister, consequently your girlfriend, or my girlfriend, who consequently is your best friend." Ron answered.

"I am afraid that's my choice Ron, I need someone like Hermione or Ginny to come along, and in case you haven't noticed I haven't been around for four years, so that means I'm not exactly up to date on who is good at what, hell I don't even know who half these people even are!" Harry ranted.

"Alright, alright. Just make sure that whoever you choose is well protected. If anything happens to them then you can bet I'm gonna beat your ass!" Ron replied half jokingly half seriously.

"They're big girls you know, they can take care of themselves." Harry replied in exasperation on behalf of Hermione and Ginny. He didn't much like the idea of them going out there either but he knew that he had no other choice and that they would at least be with him and Ron.

"I know that! It's just, well, if something DID happen then I'd feel… you know. It would just be so hard to live without hem." Ron said, his voice filled with exasperation at the beginning but barley a whisper by the end of his speech.

"I know what you mean, but don't worry, we will be with them to look out for them." Harry said with a small smile to try and reassure Ron.

"Thanks mate" Ron said with a sigh.

"Anytime. Right well I'd better go get the rest of them and you better get ready. I'll see you up at Dumbledore's office later then" Harry said. With a nod from Ron Harry turned and left, in search of Hermione.

It didn't take long for Harry to find her, she was where she usually worked during the day, her lab.

"Hey Hermione" Harry greeted over loudly, causing her to jump at the sudden noise and almost drop whatever it was she was carefully handling.

"Harry! Don't do that you idiot! What would you have done if I had dropped this?" she exclaimed angrily.

"I don't have a clue, probably what you told me to do I should think" Harry replied with a bright smile.

"You can be just as bad as Ron sometimes, you know that?" she asked in exasperation.

"Really, me acting like my best friend sometimes? Will wonders ever seize?" Harry replied sarcastically.

"Is there a reason you're here, or are you just bored again?" she asked, settling back down to work.

"Well yeah actually" Harry replied, getting into his serious mood. "The headmaster has just offered me a mission and wants me to get together a team, the mission is…" Harry started to explain but was cut off by Hermione.

"Can't go sorry, I have so much work to get on with, now we have finished with the shield and everything I have to catch up on all of the work I've neglected." She said.

"Oh, well I expected as much. Don't worry about it, and… good luck with whatever it is you're doing." Harry said as he turned to leave.

"Wait Harry, don't forget to charge the shield before you leave, I'm assuming you wont be around to do it at the normal time?" Hermione called.

"No I wont, thanks for reminding me, oh and before I forget, expect Ron around later, he's coming with me so make sure you aren't doing anything delicate" Harry said with a cheeky smile before leaving to look for Ginny.

Once Harry had been to see all of the perspective members of the team he went back to his personal quarters to pack some essentials for the trip and then returned to Dumbledore's office where he met up once again with everyone.

"Okay that's all of us sir" Harry said after he checked to make sure they were all there and sharing a secret smile with Ginny.

When he had asked Ginny if she wanted to go on the mission as well she seemed shocked at first, when he had questioned it she had told Harry that she expected him to try and keep her out of all of the danger and be the over protective boyfriend. Harry's reply to that had been to offer to find someone else for the job if that's what she wanted him to do but Ginny had quickly regained her senses to only loose them a moment later in a (very) passionate kiss with her boyfriend, and soon one thing led to another and they were both running late for the meeting.

"Excellent. I see you picked who I had in mind." Dumbledore said with a smile to each.

The meeting didn't last long, Dumbledore explained in more detail to the team Harry had collected together and handed out specialized portkeys that could get around the barriers and shields of the school if there were any of the resistance that wished to come to Hogwarts. Harry was happy to see that Dumbledore wasn't wasting away and wallowing in self pity about his new condition (not that he expected such a thing from someone like Dumbledore) but doing something productive to the war with his free time, he had already created the specialized port keys and magic detectors that could either be worn over one eye or on the wrist.

Dumbledore had explained that the detectors only detected four levels of magic: low, for portkeys and such, Medium for enchanted objects and weak wizards and magical creatures, High for most wizards, creatures and large scale enchantments and the final one being enormous (Dumbledore's sense of humour) which included sorcerers and very powerful wizards and creatures and magical establishments like Hogwarts.

"Right then ladies and Gentleman, if you would touch this portkey it will take you to the most southern group of suspected resistance. Good luck." Dumbledore said as he produced a hanky (that may or may not have been used, it was hard to tell with Dumbledore).

The transport was very much smoother that previous portkeys and the feeling of the hook behind the navel was greatly reduced. The only worry came when they seemingly stopped in mid transport, but that was soon put to rest as they began moving again.

"Eww! Someone has used this hanky" was the first thing anyone said, and unsurprisingly it came from Ron.

"Bad luck mate." Harry said consolingly to Ron, though the grin on his face betrayed the fact that Harry and everyone else found humour in it.

"Why did we stop moving while we were being transported by the portkey?" Ginny asked.

"I think it has to do with security measures and the new type of portkey working with the shields and barriers around the school, or something like that." Remus explained as he finished surveying the area. The location they had landed was very peaceful looking, it hardly looked as though a war was going on, but of course Harry knew from experience that appearances can be very deceiving.

"Why would there be a resistance here? It looks like the only thing they would need to resist is getting the cold bug" Ron said as he wrapped his cloak closer to his body.

"I expect they have not long moved here, if you look closely you can see some signs of battle, but not enough to notice right off." Remus explained while Ginny began to set up her wrist magic sensor.

"Where are all the muggles?" Harry asked. He had wanted to know about what was going on with them after he had surveyed what London used to be, but he got suitably side tracked.

"The muggle government issued a statement declaring the existence of magic a few years ago, when the war began to touch them too. They took it surprisingly well, I suppose that has something to do with the great number of muggle born wizards and witches, but anyway once it was announced they began to go into hiding, though they couldn't leave Britain. All of the other countries see what's happening here as terrorism, which in a way I suppose it is, but they don't want anything to do with us, erm them. They think that by getting involved they will draw too much attention to themselves and voldemort will target them. Which is absolute rubbish because once he is done with us he'll move on to the bigger fish" Remus explained to Harry. Harry was suitably horrified by this news. He wouldn't have ever thought something like that would happen. In his time with his relatives and when he had actually been able to watch television the reporters for the news were always going on about how such and such a country were helping another country to over power a third or how they were trying to eradicate terrorism. It seemed that when Britain was in need no one cared.

"Got a signal, its coming from the centre of the village by the looks of it" Ginny said braking Harry out of his thoughts.

"What level is it?" Harry asked.

"It's… Medium and apart from the residue of magic from the battle that happened here that is all of the magic that's worth mentioning" Ginny said.

"Right, well you guys start heading towards it slowly, ill transform into my bird form and survey the area." Harry said and without waiting for confirmation he leapt into the air and transformed into his Quezacotl form and flew away.

"Right guys, this way then" Remus said as he directed them towards where his eye piece was displaying where the magic was.

Up in the sky Harry looked down on the small village and using his superior eyes scanned the village and the area surrounding it for any movement, finding none but a small squirrel, however he decided he would fly one more pass to make sure there was nothing in case he missed something.

"Anything there?" Ginny asked once Harry had landed and transformed back.

"Nothing, I am surprised at that, it wouldn't make sense to leave themselves unguarded and open to attack." Harry said frowning.

"Maybe that's why they have had to move recently, they aren't experienced enough to know any better?" Ron suggested from his position at the rear of the group.

"That would make sense" Remus supplied.

"Right then, if there isn't any danger lets get to it" Harry said.

It didn't take long for the small group to come to the centre of the small village and when they did they found something they weren't expecting… nothing!

"I don't understand it!" Ron exclaimed as he surveyed the area his eye piece was telling him a medium amount of magical energy was.

"Maybe there is a problem with these things?" Ginny suggested

"I don't think so, they're picking up Harry fine" Remus said as his eye piece started flashing brightly in response to Harry's magic.

"Well what could it be then?" Ron asked.

"It could be that we're too smart for you?" a voice from behind them said. They all turned around to find a man standing with a wand pointed at Ginny. The man looked to be about 50 but then he was definitely magical meaning what he looked and what he was were two very different things.

"What are you doing here?" the man asked in a dangerous voice.

"We have come from Hogwarts, we have a message for you from Headmaster Dumbledore." Harry said carefully, not wanting to give this man an excuse to hurt his Ginny. At the mention of Dumbledore something passed over the mans face, Harry thought it was hope at first but he wasn't too sure because it went from his face as fast as it came.

"Dumbledore you say? And how do I know that you aren't stinking deatheaters eh?" he asked suspiciously and bringing the wand closer to Ginny to punctuate his point.

"Listen we don't come to hurt you we have word from Dumbledore, what do you want us to do to prove it to you?" Remus tried.

"Unless you have some veritiserum on you, I don't think so." The man replied.

"What now?" Ron asked quietly to Harry, but apparently the man heard.

"I may look old but it doesn't mean I'm deaf. I'll tell you what now, you tell me you're names and why you are really here and then I extract information that I may need." He growled in a way not unlike moody.

Deciding he had had enough of this Harry flicked his wrist inconspicuously and summoned the mans wand.

"What the…?" he began but was cut off as he had three wands pointed at him.

"How did you do that!?" he asked desperately.

"With a simple wandless summoning charm" Harry replied smoothly.

"Now that the tables are turned I suggest you answer our questions. Firstly who are you?" Harry began in a cool way, not letting his voice or face betray any emotions.

"Nicolas Flammel!" was the short but shocking answer to their question.

"How is that possible, the Philosophers stone was destroyed" Ron snapped, apparently his patients was running thin also.

"Does that mean that I was didn't have enough elixir left to sustain me for a good many years to come?" he snapped.

"So if you really are who you claim to be then why are you hiding out here and not at Hogwarts?" Remus asked in his usual calm voice.

"Because I have a community to help, I cant abandon them. It would be impossible for us to make our way there either, Voldemort would detect us in no time and send out an army." Flammel explained.

"How would he do that?" Harry queried.

"I may only be an alchemist but that doesn't mean I'm weak! I'm one of the most powerful wizards alive, add to that the amount of people that would be around me if we stepped out of these wards he would be able to detect us straight away." Flammel answered.

"You seem awfully eager to talk…" Ginny said more thoughtfully than questioningly.

"That's because I can trust you" he replied, but did not elaborate.

"I don't understand, if you trust us then why did you hold us at wand point then?" Harry asked.

"Because I didn't trust you" was the quick reply. Harry could understand now how this man could put up with Dumbledore for all the time they had been friends. He was just as infuriating as Dumbledore, if not more so!

"You just said that you trust us, and now your saying that you don't, make up your bloody mind! Ron snapped, his temper flaring up once again.

"I said I didn't trust you not don't. the reason why I trust you now is that nice bit of wandless magic that that young man there just displayed. He did it easily which means he is powerful, more powerful than me, also meaning that if he was a death eater he would have killed or captured me by now. Finally and most importantly I know of only three people well two, the third can hardly count as a person any more, that can perform wandless magic to that ability, and I can see you are neither Dumbledore or voldemort which means that by the process of elimination you must be Harry Potter!" the ancient wizard finished, wearing a smile as he did so.

"Very impressive Mr Flammel." Remus said as he signalled the others to lower their wands.

"Thank you" was the jovial reply. After Harry had handed over his wand again and the others had introduced themselves Flammel asked Harry what it was Dumbledore had sent them here for.

"Well you see sir there have been some… shall we say developments in the war which have freed up a lot of resources for us to be able to now start collecting in the various resistance groups we are aware of and offering them cover." Harry explained.

"Oh really?" Flammel asked, apparently interested. "And what might I ask are these developments?" he queried.

"well sir I don't really feel safe discussing such things in the open like this" Harry replied.

"Oh yes, of course of course." Flammel chuckled. "When you get to be my age you tend to forget things rather easily" he said as he led them to the centre of the village where it appeared nothing was.

"Right then, stand in this circle here" Flammel said as he gestured to the circle on the floor where the material used for the normal paths in the village changed colour.

"Now every think about this word; Ointment." Flammel said. Once they had all done so something amazing began to happen. It looked like the colour was draining from the surrounding area, but also colour was being replaced where it shouldn't have been, it was like a water colour painting that was running. Finally when everything had stopped Harry looked around in utter amazement, as well as confusion. It looked like there was a village within a village now, the original being in black and white.

"What just happened?" Ron asked a little breathlessly.

"This is the resistance, what just happened was a altered and more complicated version of the fidelius charm, it was incredibly draining to cast, but what it basically allows us to do is create a small plain of existence next to the normal, only it has to follow the same rules as the normal plain. We set it up over this village and then we built our camp here. We can see what goes on in the real plain but no one can see in here." Flammel explained.

"So that's how you were able to creep up on us, even after Harry had surveyed the area?" Ginny asked.

"No ,no, that's not it. I was watching you all from a short distance away" was Flammels answer.

"But how could Harry have missed you?" Remus asked with a frown on his face as he tried to come up with a reason for his question.

"Because I was looking for humans, not squirrels" Harry replied with a small smile and a twinkle in his eyes not unlike Dumbledore's

"That's very sharp of you to notice me Harry, well done." Flammel said as he led them all to a medium sized cottage.

"So you're an unregistered animagus then?" Ginny asked.

"No, I am registered, but that was about 500 years ago" was Flammels reply.

"Now then down to business, I assume you are not the evil traitor the minister made you out to be Mr Potter, and I also assume you aren't dead." Flammel said to get things started.

"No sir" Harry said with a laugh. "I figured the only way I stood a chance against Riddle was if I fought on his level." Harry explained, earning a nod from Flammel. "As for the being dead part, I was for a while, but as it turns out I was close enough to my second animagus form that it was able to save me, as you may have seen earlier it is a Quezacotl which are similar to Phoenix. To cut to the chase I was dead, but I had unfinished business here (here Harry glanced at Ginny) so I was supposed to come back as a ghost but thanks to the abilities of the Quezacotl I went through a burning day of sorts. That was four years ago and since then I have escaped from the inside of a dementor, reclaimed my body and killed the minister who was in fact alive." Harry said, making it sound as though he was chatting about the weather and not his coming back to life and escaping a dementor.

"My, those are great achievements Mr Potter, I commend you on them." Flammel said a little breathlessly. "It seems that Albus was right about you, you do break every rule there is" he chuckled. "Now about those developments at Hogwarts?" Flammel asked.

"Right well, as you know the Quezacotl bird has control over lightning, as so I was able to, with the help from my friend, design and make a shield that covers all of Hogwarts and is unbreakable and can reflect the unforgivable." Harry recounted to him.

"Now that is something. I never dreamed I would ever hear someone claim to be able to do such a thing. Does it work just for the shield or is it available for personal use as well?" he asked.

"I'm afraid personal use would be quite impossible sir, it uses a great amount of electricity and I simply don't have the time or the power to protect everyone individually." Harry explained.

"That's too bad, but at least you have Hogwarts properly protected. I assume the reason you are here is to offer us refuge?" Flammel asked, changing topics smoothly.

"Yes sir, we have portkeys ready if you choose to, if not then we would like to set up a secure line of communication." Harry replied.

"And also it would be helpful if you could tell us of any other resistance groups you know about?" Ron asked.

"Certainly, right well I believe a meeting is in order to share the news." Flammel said with a grin.

The meeting didn't go as smoothly as Harry had imagined it would. It too ka great deal of time to assure everyone that they were who they claimed to be and what they were offering was real, and then once they had done that they had to convince everyone that first Harry Potter was not evil, second he is not dead and third he is the person standing before them. However once they got passed all of that the meeting was over fairly quickly. Everyone wanted to leave for Hogwarts so they were sent to gather their things and meet back, once that was done they all exited the separate plain and port keyed to Hogwarts, not before they got the location of the nearest Resistance.

The Resistance they were directed to next was not like the first one they had found, this one was much smaller, less organised and there was quite a few people that were injured, however it didn't take long to convince them and send them off as it did the previous. And so went the same pattern for weeks, they would find a group, convince them they were light, convince them Harry was real and light, convince them the portkeys really did go to Hogwarts and convince them to give them the location of the next closest group. By the end of the week they had moved halfway up Britain and found 15 extra groups on top of the already suspected 18. it was at the end of the week however that they ran into trouble. They were staying with a fairly large resistance for the night when there was a death eater attack.

"Ginny start porting them away now! Ron come with me and Remus, float around and protect any that need it" Harry commanded when word reached him of the attack.

It turned out that it wasn't just deatheaters but deatheaters and dementors. Everyone fought long and hard against the deatheaters while Harry was holding off the dementors by himself.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry would yell every few minutes, summoning patroni and then blasting other dementors with fire and lightning. Meanwhile Ron was battling a group of death eaters whilst Ginny portkeyed more and more of the resistance away.

"Harry! Hurry up, I cant hold them… expelliarmus… of much… protego… longer!" Ron shouted.

"Harry!" Ginny screamed as a group of death eaters broke away from the main battle and began firing curses at him. Caught off guard Harry was hit with three cruciatus curses and a cutting charm.

"Aaarrgghh!" He cried out, the pain overwhelming him.

"Not so tuff now are you Potter!" one of the death eaters spat.

"Just wait until we have our way with the pretty little witch Potter, that's when the torture really begins." Another one taunted, but that was the wrong thing to say.

"AAARRGGHH Harry cried but this time it wasn't in pain, but anger. With his left hand Harry grabbed the strands of magic that connected him with the curses and pulled them away and redirected them at each of the deatheaters.

"Harry…" Ron started but was cut off as he was hit with a dark curse causing his eyes to roll to the back of his head and for him to fall to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Having had enough and seeing his friends starting to fall Harry summoned to him a huge ball of fire, then he wrapped electricity around it and let it fire into the remaining deatheaters, while ate the same time summoning Ron to himself.

Not wanting to wait around anymore and seeing that Ginny had portkeyed the last of the Resistance away he made his way over to her.

"We need to get out of her now, activate a portkey" Harry said as he gently lay Ron on the floor.

"What about Remus?" Ginny asked.

"I thought he went with another group?" Harry asked with a feeling of dread welling up inside of him.

"I don't think he did." Ginny replied.

"Shit! Wait here, I'll go look for him, at the first sign of trouble get out of here, I can use my form to get there later" Harry told her before planting a kiss on her lips and heading back into the sea of dead bodies to locate Remus.

It didn't take long to find him, but it would have been quicker if Harry had used a summoning charm, but not knowing the condition Remus was in he didn't want to risk it. As it turned out Remus was knocked out from a loose rock that had falled from the top of the cave where the resistance was headed.

"Harry?" Remus asked as he came round.

"Yeah its me, you had a bump on the head, do you think you can walk?" Harry replied, relieved that he seemed to be okay, save a nasty headach and a large lump.

"yeah I think so" Remus said as he got to his feet, swayed a little and began to fall, luckily Harry expected something like that and easily caught him.

"It might be easier if I float you along" Harry told him, setting him upright and letting his magic take hold of him.

"I'm fine, really" Remus mumbled.

"Sure." Was all Harry replied.

He made it back to the others rather quickly, or at least where the others should have been.

"What the…" Harry began but was cut off by a searing pain in his scar.

"What is it Harry?" Remus asked dazedly

"It's too close to be a coincidence." Harry mumbled before he let his mental shields drop.

"Well, well, well, look who it is. Tell me something Potter, have you lost anything?" Riddle sneered in Harry's mind. Harry's eyes widened in shock and his legs began to tremble.

Voldemort had Ron and Ginny.

He didn't know where Voldemort was.

He didn't know where Ron and Ginny were.

Shit!

**A/N: Hey y'all, very sorry for the long wait, I've been very down lately and didn't have any motivation to write, well that is except for your reviews but still that wasn't enough. I did try a few times but I just couldn't. but at least it is here now. I'm sorry if this chapter feels different from the others, but I have to get back into the swing of things so bare with me. Not sure when the next update will be, hopefully not long but I wouldn't hold your breath.**

**Thanks for your loyalty and your reviews (most of you) they mean a lot.**

**Until next time.******

**                        GG**


	6. Harry’s Crusade Begins

**Harry Potter and The Rise Of A Champion**

****

**Chapter Six: Harry's Crusade Begins**

A/N: Please read bottom Authors note if you are interested in helping me with a project of mine.

"You're not going to do anything?!" Harry all but shouted at the headmaster

"What is there for me to do Harry? You have been away for a very long time, perhaps you don't fully appreciate the situation" Dumbledore replied in his usual patient calm voice. Harry had been back at Hogwarts now for half an hour. After depositing Remus with the nurse currently in charge of the hospital wing and making sure he would be alright he had made his way straight to the headmaster's office to make immediate rescue plans. The longer Ron and Ginny were stuck in what ever hell hole Riddle had them in the less likely it was that he would ever see them again.

"I don't appreciate the situation! I don't care about the situation! That's my best friend and girlfriend he has his scaly claws on!" Harry screamed, loosing all acts of being calm about the whole thing.

"What would you have me do then Harry? Put everything on hold to find two people?" Dumbledore uncharacteristically snapped having also lost his patience. "Bring in all of our people from their various jobs, sacrificing all of the people they could be saving, for the sake of two others? This is war Harry, and in war people die. I know they are special to you, they are to me, but do you think we should be selfish and hold that above all else, above hundreds of lives?" the old man finished sadly. He could tell by the look on Harry's face through his rant what he was thinking, at the beginning he was angry, in the middle he was shocked and by the end he was acceptant.

"It isn't always easy to choose, Harry. You know this. If there was a way I would happily set a plan into motion." Dumbledore said warily.

"I'm sorry, sir. I shouldn't have snapped. Do we at least know where they might be?" Harry asked hopefully.

"No, we don't. Tom has many strongholds now, we have spies trying to identify his personal residence, but they are having a hard time of it. Tom rarely makes appearances now, he commands his death eaters through his most loyal. I have been informed that he spends much of his time and resources trying to find a way to gain the sort of power you demonstrated, but it is proving to take a lot of time." Dumbledore explained.

"So the situation is practically hopeless, he took my best friend and girlfriend and now I'm helpless to rescue them?" Harry asked, voice thick with emotion.

"Yes, I'm afraid it is so" Dumbledore whispered.

"NO!" Harry shouted, tears in his eyes "I won't allow it! I wont allow him to beat me, to take from me what I spent so long craving for! I will not sit idly by while he does god only knows what to them!" Harry shouted, more at himself than the headmaster.

"Please do not do anything rash Harry" Dumbledore pleaded.

"I will do what I have to! You have what you need here to continue without me, you have Nicolas Flammel, Hermione Granger, you have an impregnable defence. You can get by without me." Harry said with a great determination in his voice before sweeping out of the room.

"Harry, Harry, Harry. Why must you be so noble?" Dumbledore sighed.

"Because if he weren't, then who would be?" replied a voice from behind him.

"I do not know, but I fear one day we might have to find out if he does not be more careful, old friend." Dumbledore answered sadly, apparently not surprised to find Flammel in the room.

"He knows what he is doing, give the boy a chance." Said Nicolas.

"A chance" Dumbledore repeated. "I worry sometimes that with the powers he has, he sees himself as unbeatable." Dumbledore confided.

"He is young, and he has been through much in his short life. He has seen and felt horrors that not even I can say I have. If anything I would say he sees himself as any of us do" Nicolas replied, and at Dumbledore's eyebrow rose in question he answered. "a scared boy wondering how the world became so cruel". Dumbledore smiled his agreement. Before he had chance to continue the discussion Nicolas spoke again.

"Now let us see what we can do about that problem of yours"

After leaving the headmasters office Harry went straight to his quarters and began writing a note. He addressed it to 'whomever it may concern' and after he finished writing it he sealed it and left it on his desk and got to work.

"What do you mean gone?!" Remus exclaimed angrily.

"He left a note, he said that if he would not get any help in finding Ron and Ginny, then he would do it himself. We found that he has taken some things from the storage rooms as well, namely a map of all of Riddles known strongholds and such, his glove from the display cabinet, Gryffindors sword and a specialised port-key." Hermione explained. She had gone to check on Harry to see how he was after hearing the terrible news herself. She truly regretted declining to go now and not being in Ginny's place, knowing that if Harry lost her it would hurt him so much that she would not be able to help him through it, if it had been the other way around she knew that Ginny would have been able to do something.

"That idiot! What does he think he's playing at?! What was he thinking?!" Remus ranted, gaining the unwanted attention of madam Pomfry who was on duty.

"Miss Granger if you must insist on aggravating my patient then I must insist on you leaving, and you Remus" She said, rounding on Remus after laying into Hermione. "You had better calm down, or I will make you drink a dreamless sleep potion. Is that understood?" She asked with a threatening glare.

"Yes ma'm" Remus sighed in defeat, both at being in the hospital and doing what he was told as well as Harry going off on some hair brained, ill thought out plan to bust into a voldemort occupied castle or dungeon or where ever it was he stayed, to rescue two people, granted those two people were people that he would gladly die for, but that was just what he was afraid of, he had already gone through that with James, Lilly, Sirius twice, peter before he knew the truth and Harry when the auras killed him.

"Hello there Tronza, have you been waiting all this time for me, pal?" Harry asked with a smile. He had just that minute arrived back at his home in Godrics Hollow. He was surprised to see the small village still in-tact, but guessed that with all of the wards surrounding the place and the fact that Riddle had sent an army years earlier he expected it to be a waste of his time.

He received a happy trill as answer to his question as the majestic bird flew from his perch to Harry's shoulder.

"Is everything as I left it?" Harry asked, making his way to the potions lab.

Again the bird trilled, but this time Harry acknowledged it as an answer in the affirmative.

"Good, we won't have much time before they come looking for me here. We will be going on a journey; he has taken something from me Tronz, something he should have left well alone." Harry told him, a dark look coming to his eyes as he thought of what he would do to Riddle if he so much as touched one hair on his Ginny's head, or hurt either her or Ron.

After gathering his Pre-made potions from storage and piling a load of ingredients into a cauldron as well as the potions that he hadn't set aside he shrunk it and placed it in his rucksack. The remaining potions he put into the belt he had just conjured with his glove, the slung it over his shoulder, making his way to his room to change cloths.

Once satisfied with his attire (Black jeans, black T-shirt and black leather jacket with his crest on the back with the conjured belt around his waist and the Gryffindors sword slung over his shoulder in a dark brown scabbard, hair tied back, now shining blue in the light due to his animagus form and his casting Glove on his right hand, absorbing light and reflecting it in a blue glow) he made his way back down to the living room to once again speak with Tronza.

"I want you to stick close to me boy, I won't be using any high level magic, that includes apparating and my animagus form or both Riddle and Dumbledore will track me, think you can do that?" Harry asked, receiving a brief nod of the head from his loyal friend and familiar. Making his way out of the sitting room Harry went to the only room of the house that was not in the original plans, the garage.

"It's been a long time, too long" Harry whispered, standing in the door way and gazing at one of his most prized possessions. Walking over to it Harry began eyeing it for any damage, and when satisfied everything was in working order he gently ran his hand over the leather of the seat.

"We have a long time together ahead of ourselves, and it's going to be tuff, but I know Sirius would never ride anything other than a tuff bike." Harry whispered to it, as if it could understand him. Smiling to himself at the memory of Sirius Harry mounted the bike and started the engine, relishing in the sound of it. Waving a hand at the brick wall in font of him it started to move and rearrange itself much in the same way that the portal to Dagon alley once did, and set off on his crusade to save his friends, to save his heart.

"What do you mean we're going to do nothing?!" Remus screamed at Dumbledore. It seemed to the old sorcerer that this conversation was happening too much.

"He is a grown man now Remus, if it is his will to forgo the protection that this castle offers and seek out his friends then who am I to stop him?" Dumbledore replied calmly. The werewolf in front of him had barley been out of the hospital five minutes and already he was looking as though he would be back there from suffering a stroke.

"You are his teacher, I am his guardian, surely that counts for something." Remus replied, desperation in his voice.

"It might have, a few years ago" The headmaster answered.

"I just don't want him to die" Remus whispered, head bowed in defeat and tears in his weary eyes.

"My dear boy, who said anything about dieing?" Dumbledore said with a small twinkle in his eyes.

"I have recently been reminded by a great man that though Harry can be foolish and impulsive he has seen many struggles and met many a foe and walked away, that though he knows he is one of the most powerful in history he is just as innocent as the lost 11 year old boy who walked through these halls many years ago. If he has made it this far, if he has defied even death, then what is there to stop him now? Who is there to stop him? Tom Riddle? I don't think so, I think that the final battle is coming sooner than we think, but I know that when it does, Harry will be walking away from it."

A/N: Another update! Hooray! Shorter than usual, I know, but this chapter is more of a transitional one, setting the scene for what Harry does next with the whole tracking his friends down on a motor bike across the land. To answer a question that a few of you have been asking, the chapters 6 – 10 haven't been showing because when was down a few days ago and it kept saying story not found when I clicked on them I thought that they had been deleted because of my ratings (since are cracking down on miss-rated fics) so I re-uploaded them, only because the database was down I think it only registered that chapters were there, but did not upload the actual chapters… if you get me :D. in short chapters 6-10 aren't real.

A/N2: Now onto the Project mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. For a long time now I have had the idea for another fic running rampage in my head, I have ideas story plot, even some chapters planed out in my head, only problem is, is I cant get it down on computer. As many of you may have noticed my motivation to write is somewhat lacking. I am not a writer, I don't believe I have a great skill in this area, but I can come up with great ideas and plots, so I am asking if there is anyone out there that would be interested in Authoring the story I have thought out, there are a requirement that I would prefer each person have, and that is: they have some published work that I can read to judge for myself. If any one is interested then please leave me a review with appropriate details and I'll get back to you.

Until next time.

GG


	7. To Walk Toward Battle

**Harry Potter and The Rise Of A Champion**

**Chapter Seven: To Walk Toward Battle**

The wind rushed by his face as he swept along the country on the magical motor bike that Sirius had left him, a look of dark determination set on his face showing to all who would gaze upon it for months to come that he was a man on a mission, and he would do anything to achieve the goals of the mission, anything at all.

"That's the second one over the hill there Tronz, fancy scouting it out for me?" Harry said to his faithful familiar as he brought the bike to a stop and set it on its stand. He received a trill in reply, which he interpreted as a yes.

"Thank you, you know what to do don't you? Just like the last time, alright?" Harry said with a small smile gracing his weary face. Again he received the same trill from his only travelling companion, and in a whoosh of air the phoenix sped away to the second fortress of the dark lord, as shown on his stolen map. It didn't take long for the phoenix to get back so Harry got right to work on searching his mind with an advanced branch of Legillemency that wizards can perform on certain types of magical familiars.

"So, they have mountain trolls patrolling?" Harry mused to himself. It had been years since he had seen one of those hideous (and not to mention smelly) creatures.

"It doesn't seem as big as the other place, this must be an outpost or something then… but then if it was why would they have trolls guarding here but not the last place?" Harry asked aloud. Tronza cocked his head to the side in response, as if saying 'Why are you asking me, I know I'm perfect, but I'm not all knowing'

Forming a quick plan in his mind, Harry unsheathed the sword of Gryffindor and, allowing a small amount of wandless magic to seep into his muscles he charged over the hill. To the trolls the oncoming threat looked more like a line of wizards charging at them because Harry was moving so fast and so before they could even grunt one of them was already on the floor, missing a head and one of the others was being tackled. Not giving himself time to rest (he may have used magic to make his physical abilities better, but it still cost him energy) Harry jumped from the shoulder of the still collapsing corps of the mountain troll and jammed his sword through the shoulder of the next closest troll and used it to hoist himself up, however his sword appeared to be jammed in the collar bone of it, and Harry didn't have the time to get it out because it now looked like the trolls were catching on to the fact that they were only dealing with one wizard, and that he could move faster than is normal, the result was that the troll he was currently riding began bucking wildly causing Harry to have to dig the claws of his magical glove into the thick skin of the troll and hold on for his life, and this he later reflected was the thing that indeed did save his life because the last mountain troll had noticed the problem its fellow troll was having and decided it could knock Harry off with his club and so it swung with all it's might and connected with a solid crack, effectively knocking out the bucking troll after missing Harry who had dug his glove into the skin and lay himself along the trolls shoulder.

"Two down one to go" Harry murmured as he rose to his feet and took in the last troll, who seemed confused that Harry was still standing, but its companion was not. Deciding to take advantage of the situation Harry braced himself and then with not so much as a sound took a small, but fast, run up and jumped using his enhanced abilities onto the club the troll was examining, and held on tight for the expected shaking of the club from the troll, trying to knock him off. This was exactly what he wanted, because now there was enough momentum for him to cast a low-level levitation charm and use the swing from the troll to put force in a blow to the trolls head.

Once the final troll was on the ground unconscious Harry searched his mind for the layout of the fortress before him that Tronza had supplied.

"3 Levels high, main hall, sleeping quarters… and storage, a lot of storage. So this isn't an outpost but a warehouse. I suppose taking this from them will be detrimental to their war effort" Harry said and chuckled to himself. Now that the trolls were taken out Harry only had to find a way to enter the building and search the dungeons (What property of the Dark Lords would be complete without one?) for Ron and Ginny. After casting a few minor detection spells to determine the wards around the building Harry began circling the perimeter looking for any way in, or any faults in the structure he could exploit.

'This would be so much easier if I didn't have to worry about the magic detection both Dumbledore and Riddle use' Harry thought angrily to himself as he passed a set of doors for the third time. It appeared that the building was well warded, and the structure sound, there was no way in but the front doors, and they were sure to detect the absence of the dark mark on his arm.

"Well what would life be like without taking a few risks?" Harry asked himself as he steeled himself for whatever nasty surprise awaited him after entering those doors.

"Boring" Harry groaned. In front of him stood no more than 20 deatheaters and they all looked like they wanted a piece of him.

"Well, well, well. We've been expecting you Potter, it seems you have indeed done the Gryffindor thing and started searching our bases in order of location. We've been expecting you for several days now, though I do confess I had began to think you had actually used your brain and gone at our bases randomly." Said a deatheater, apparently their leader of the group. As he spoke Harry examined his surrounding, or what little he could see of them. He appeared to be in the main entrance hall, with only one way out other than the doors the deatheaters were guarding, and that was the way he came.

"You think I came in here without a plan?" Harry asked mockingly, although the deatheater was right, it was rather foolish of him to take out the fortresses one by one, and not to mention more difficult without the use of his full magical potential, but if he were to take them out randomly he could strike fast and quick with his full force and be gone by the time Riddle or Dumbledore sent someone to take care of the problem, or show up themselves.

"Oh? You have a plan then? It must be going wrong then, you look petr…" the deatheater sneered, but was cut off as Harry struck. He had no plan, what he said was a bluff, he just hoped he could hit them while they were distracted, and use his still enhanced muscles to his advantage. With a slashing sound the lead deatheater fell to the floor dead, with a gaping hole in his chest before any of his comrades could blink.

"REDUCTO" came a bellow from their right, they barely had time to even register that before an explosion with force enough to rock the castle hit, wiping out the closest deatheaters, but only bruising the ones who were further away and had time to put up a shield.

"Disecta" shouted a faceless deatheater who was quick to recover, the spell however did little more than light up the shadows where Harry had been moments before.

"Stupefy" came a whisper from behind, and the ambitious deatheater fell unconscious to the floor, however the spell had given away his position, and before he could apparate away he was bombarded with every spell imaginable. Erecting a hasty shield spell Harry went over his options in his mind.

'option one, I could flare my aura and knock them all back, alerting Riddle and Dumbledore that the power they detected earlier was me. Option two, I could change my form, again alerting them. Option three, drop the shield and give them all I've got, with medium level curses.'

Having decided which option he was going to take Harry dropped the shield at the same time he felt apparation wards being set up and dove behind a support pillar.

"Expelliarmus" "Stupefy" "Petrificus Totalus" Harry fired off in quick succession. He was able to fell five death eaters with those, the spells being so easy he was able to over charge them and have them bounce from one target to the next like electricity.

"Shit, he' faster than I thought, how is that possible?" One of the lesser deatheaters asked.

"Does it matter? Just blow him up!" Another replied.

Using their distraction to his advantage Harry closed his eyes for a few seconds to get a feel for the place and then he began to absorb the wards from around him, pooling it into his hand channel and glove, before finally adding electricity in equal parts to the magic. The effect this particular bit of magic had when Harry released it and guided it with his wandless mind magic was spectacular, because electricity when in greater amounts than magic reverses magic's effects and vice versa for magic, the effect when they are even and in enough amounts is like a miniaturised muggle A-bomb, with prettier colours. While there was not enough magic and electricity added to alert Riddle and Dumbledore about his identity there was certainly enough to take out the last deatheaters.

"What the fuc…" The lesser death eater queried as he saw the emerald green floating ball of magic with purple electricity licking the surface float towards him, he never got to finish his sentence however because when it got close enough the whole thing began to ripple, before the union of magic and electricity finally becoming unstable and exploding with such force that the very air was distorted, vaporising all but a lucky few.

Coming from his hiding spot Harry took in the scene before him. It reminded him very much of his rebirth, when the sorcerer transformation had begun and he fried all those present.

"That looks painful" Harry remarked as he saw one of the death eaters who were stunned was missing a lot of his skin and hair from the left side of his body. Deciding that he looked the most likely to be able to answer his questions Harry strode over to him and enervated him.

"Ahhhh" was the first thing out of the mouth of the recently un-stunned death eater.

"I have a few questions for you to answer, and as a reward I'll take the pain away." Harry said calmly as the deatheater thrashed about on the ground, trying to keep from screaming out whilst in Harry's presence. After a few moments oin which it appeared the deatheater was trying to form a response he was finally able to murmer something, which took Harry a few seconds to decipher, but when he did he was quite impressed with the bravery of this deatheater, his response was an unoriginal, yet unexpected "Go to hell you Bastard".

"Well then, I see we're going to have to do things the hard way, aren't we?" Harry asked darkly. The effect this had on the deatheater would have been quite comical if he had not been in such pain. The determination to get his best friend and brother in all but blood, as well as his girlfriend back at any cost was reflected in his eyes, his face was set to one of dark determination and hatred and his voice had an underlining of suffering, and so to the deatheater when Harry had told him he was going to get the information the hard way he had interpreted it as several long bouts with the cruciatus curse. In reality however all Harry meant was he was going to have to take the block off his mind reading abilities and read this deatheaters mind, but by doing this he would pick up the pain and suffering also, and not just from this deatheater but from all those close enough. With a resigned sigh Harry prepared himself for a long day.

* * *

"What news have we of his movements?" Questioned the leader of the light forces, the formidable Albus Dumbledore. 

"He has already taken out the Cornwall stronghold, headmaster. When we got their there wasn't much left of anything, it looked like he'd blown it up or something, but if that was the case wouldn't we have detected it?" replied Tonks, who since the war reached such epic proportions always went out of her way to appear normal.

"Harry is a very skilled wizard who I myself have taught, I planted the seeds of thinking out of the normal in his mind, and it seems it was a very fertile place" Dumbledore replied with a smile and twinkle.

"So Harry has found a way to avoid our magical radars then?" She queried in confusion.

"No, dear girl he has not, but we can only detect magic cast from a being, Harry has the ability to pool magic from around him to either use or absorb, as well as his fire elemental and lightning abilities, both of which I doubt we could detect with out very sensitive radars." Dumbledore answered calmly. Since Harry had left Dumbledore had spent much of his time with his old friend and teacher, Nicolas Flammel. They had both been working on improvements to Hogwarts defences and living conditions, using the advanced fidelius as the last line of defence. In their spare time they had both been working on Dumbledore's mobility.

"This all seems so surreal sometimes, the amount of power Voldemort controls, the amount of power Harry does, the war, everything. I just wonder how this all got so far" Tonks said in an uncommon act of disparity.

"I know, but we have to remember that there is always a brighter future on the horizon. We have seen evil the likes of which have not been seen for hundreds of years, if ever, but we have also seen love, light, courage and the very embodiment of all we fight for. We are lucky enough to be here to witness Harry, to know him and to fight with him, not because we may someday have our names in a book, or because we feel obligated, but because he brings out the best in everyone, good or evil. We may be in the worst times of the wizarding world, but we are in them with such a shining example of hope that it is worth fighting for, worth dieing for." Dumbledore said in a voice barely above a whisper, with such emotions that his twinkling eyes shone with tears and passion. For her part Tonks looked to be much the same, her eyes tearing, smile small but speaking volumes, and for the first time in four years, her hair a shocking pink!

"He is very lucky to have someone like you looking out for him, sir" Tonks whispered.

With a smile that brightened the room and a small chuckle, the old sorcerer replied "It is I who is lucky to have Harry, my dear"

* * *

"My Lord, another one has been taken, nothing remains… it was the…" The deatheater didn't get to finish his report however, just hearing the words 'another one has been take' was enough for him. 

"Cruccio" Voldemort bellowed, pointing his finger at Nott, the unfortunate deatheater who had to deliver the news. Since conquering most of Britain the dark lord had saw fit to only be in contact with the few inner circle that he trusted, and he commanded his army through them, unfortunately his inner circle was not as big or well versed in magic as it had been before potter and Dumbledore got to them. Just thinking those names fuelled the cruciatus curse more than was usual.

"AAAHHHH" Nott screamed from his place on the floor, where he was thrashing about.

"I told you not to bring me any more bad news, did I not?" Voldemort sneered in his snake like hissing.

"AAAAHHH" that was all the reply Nott could give.

"Look at you, you are pathetic, you sicken me, get out. I want information from those blood traitors when next I summon you, now go!" Voldemort screeched at Nott after he had lifted the curst.

"Master the balance changes, he grows by the day, he shall soon be here" came a quite hissing from a dark corner. To all who would look upon and listen all they would have heard was hissing, unless they were a parstletongue, like Tom Riddle or Harry Potter…

* * *

Harry awoke with a start, his scar tingling. Since being back in his body Harry had had the chance to take advantage of his scar, or more specifically the link and now he was able to view normal (for him) emotion driven dreams from Riddle, much like he had in his fifth year, only this time Riddle didn't know and Harry had control. 

'So the snake can taste the magic flow? Riddle must know that the war is turning in our favour.' Harry mused to himself as he stretched. It had only been about 4 hours since he had finished off the second of the many fortresses known and unknown to him. He had found nothing of any use and as expected Ron and Ginny weren't there. The answers he had got from the mind of the deatheater however were at least useful, he didn't know where Riddle's personal stronghold was but he did know of a few others that the light side didn't know about, and they weren't that far away, meaning he could surprise them, catch them unawares. Checking his watch Harry saw he had still a few hours left before he was due to move out, but decided on leaving now seeing as how he doubted he would get anymore sleep in the knowledge that Ron and Ginny were getting information extracted from them, and he doubted it was by use of potion. With a sigh he gathered his things together and woke Tronza (who wasn't happy about it) and went on his way, this was the routine he would keep for weeks to come, search and destroy, rest and travel, this is what would keep him alive and sane for weeks to come.

* * *

"Sir, we have just received word from the muggle Prim Minister!" Remus Lupin exclaimed as he barged into the headmasters office. He was unsurprised to see Flammel seated with the headmaster, it was common sight these days for the two ancient wizards to be found in this office. They had been working hard on restoring mobility for Dumbledore for weeks now, ever since they had strengthened the wards of the castle, the defences and made living easier. Remus had no idea what they were doing however to help Albus walk again, or use his arm, but he knew that if anyone could do it, it was these two, or Harry, now there was a thought. Harry had been gone now for over a month and a half, they had received the occasional letter by way of phoenix and some of the guards claimed to have seen a Quezacotl charging the wards. The sound of someone quickly rising to their feet brought Remus back to reality. 

"This is excellent news Remus, has the accuracy of this information been proven?" Dumbledore asked as he strode across the room to him.

"Yes sir, we received word by way of owl, tracked it back with a detection camera on it, it certainly looks like him, there is now magic detected in the area and he appears to have most of his ministers with him." Remus replied as he and Dumbledore with Flammel behind began walking through Hogwarts towards the planning room.

"Excellent, what did he say?" Dumbledore asked

"He has requested aid, he and his people have been working on rounding up the muggle, since Harry got back the focus has been taken off looking for them and so he has been able covertly get them, or at least locate them." Remus replied with a smile, it was truly good news that the muggle government was still operational, and better that they were now pulling together, especially faster now they had a break from the relentless attacks from the deatheater, it seemed that lately, or at least before Harry was back they had taken to a new sport: Muggle hunting. Remus wrinkled his nose in disgust thinking about what they did for fun.

"This is truly good news, we need to get specialised portkeys set up, temporary residence and storage space, we will transfer over all we can from their base of operations. This really is a move in the right direction for our side. Was that all he sent?" Dumbledore beamed, things certainly were looking up, and they all had to do with Harry Potter, had he not came back from the dead (which was the best news by far so far) then they would not have his good friend Nicolas, they would not have had contact with the muggles and they would defiantly have lost Hogwarts.

"He didn't write much in case it was intercepted, he requests a meeting with you though." Remus promptly replied.

"Of course, a meeting, now then.." Dumbledore said, before he was interrupted.

"Your walking!" someone screamed from behind.

"What!" Remus exclaimed, spinning around to see Hermione running up the corridor, then he turned to face Albus who had such a twinkle in his eyes, he thought they were charged with some sort of magic.

"Professor! When did this happen?" Hermione exclaimed, panting from her sprint up the corridor.

"We just finished when Remus came barging into my office, the muggle prime minister has come forward" Dumbledore replied, talking as if it were an everyday experience for someone who was permanently crippled to be up and walking again.

"Prime minister, yes, yes that's all well and good, but this is magnificent, how did you do it Mr. Flammel?" Hermione asked, face alight with happiness and hope for the first time since Harry had left.

"A combination of alchemy ,naturally, muggle technology and magic, it seems Mr Potters techniques for wandless magic have more uses than we expected, we were able to set up reservoirs for Albus' magic, then we added a little muggle gene therapy by way of magic, and the result is a fully functioning Albus Dumbledore, though we have had to re-create a certain stone." Flammel explained.

"You mean I've been walking through Hogwarts for the past ten minutes with you, I didn't notice! How thick can I get!" Remus asked in amazement at his own stupidity. It was such a common thing to walk with the headmaster that he hadn't even adjusted to not being able to before it was all normal again. This earned a few laughs at his expense, but it was well deserved.

"Now then, I believe we have some guests to start preparing for, if things go well, we may be able to step this war up a notch, and bring Harry back into the fold" Dumbledore said, getting back to business.

"The end is coming soon" smiled Dumbledore.

* * *

A/N: AN UPDATE!!! I've updated… it must be the first sign of the apocalypse, or I just got a new muse  Bet you weren't expecting an update for this ever again ;-) hopefully updates will be more regular, I feel the need to finish this, and whilst writing this an idea for a sequel has began forming… who knows. Any who I hope you all enjoy this, I know not much happens here, it was more of a getting back into the swing of things chapter for me, the next one you'll see some deatheater hunting from Harry, some Dumbledore and Flammel action and maybe an attempted escape, who knows? Certainly not me. 

Until next time,

GG


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